Stakeholders Grapple With Scarcity of NYC Parking
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The Trucking Affiliation of New York and state leaders want to tackle a scarcity of truck parking within the New York Metropolis space that has led to vans being towed and booted, and which has prompted an effort within the state Legislature to extend fines for vans parked illegally in residential areas.
“Heavy enforcement alone has not labored prior to now and won’t work now absent accessible industrial automobile parking,” stated Kendra Hems, president of the Trucking Affiliation of New York. The police division’s “Operation Heavy Obligation Enforcement” focused in a single day parking of economic automobiles in residential neighborhoods of southern Queens.
Hems added, “Whereas we by no means condone parking on residential streets the place it’s unlawful to take action, we really feel it’s crucial to grasp that we can not ticket our method out of this downside. The fact is that drivers — a lot of them our neighbors, household and buddies — merely have nowhere to park.”
Police Chief Jeffrey Maddrey stated the enforcement blitz was prompted by group complaints. Throughout a five-day operation, police issued 635 summonses, connected 89 automobile boots and towed 55 illegally parked automobiles. “I spend loads of time on this neighborhood, and I’ve observed personally how the residential blocks have been inundated with these giant automobiles that shouldn’t be parking in a single day,” he stated.
Maddrey gathered with Mayor Eric Adams, metropolis council members and different officers at an August press convention in entrance of towed automobiles to debate the initiative.
The problem additionally caught the eye of state lawmakers. Similar variations of a invoice to boost fines for in a single day parking of tractors and trailers on residential NYC streets had been launched within the state Senate and Meeting. Each measures stalled.
Acknowledging a scarcity of accessible truck parking within the metropolis, Adams stated officers are partnering with a mixture of metropolis companies “to cope with this long-term concern.” Hems stated metropolis officers should tackle the underlying concern of insufficient truck parking in all 5 boroughs.
Hems
“The business is taking steps, however we can not do that alone,” she stated. “We’d like our companions in authorities to dedicate the time and sources to resolve this downside. The business should be a part of this course of and we’re wanting to work with this administration to lastly discover significant, long-term options that profit all New Yorkers, drivers included.”
Linda Lee, who represents the twenty third Council District in Japanese Queens, instructed Transport Matters that truck parking has been a specific downside in Queens, the place JFK and LaGuardia airports — among the many nation’s busiest — are positioned. Nonetheless, the issue has mushroomed for the reason that pandemic.
She acknowledged that vans ship 90% of products transported throughout the metropolis, serving about 9 million New Yorkers. Lee additionally famous that accessible truck parking tons at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport and in Lengthy Island Metropolis “are actually at whole capability with lengthy wait lists” for accessible areas.
See beneath for the total assertion from the #TANY in response to Mayor Eric Adams Announcement on Heavy Obligation Enforcement.@NYCMayor, @CMLindaLee, @CMNantashaW, @CMBrooksPowers, @QnsBPRichards, @NYC_DOT, pic.twitter.com/pHkteV74YF
— Trucking Affiliation of New York (@TruckingAssocNY) August 23, 2022
“Whereas many of those truckers work for large-scale firms, a portion of those drivers are small enterprise owner-operator members of our group,” she stated. “We’re not trying to punish small enterprise house owners who’re attempting to make ends meet, and we need to encourage truck drivers to take their mandated breaks. On the similar time, we need to usher in large-scale firms to be a part of the answer in a method that may profit each the drivers and the group. We have to develop the infrastructure in New York Metropolis in a method that’s protected and efficient for the drivers and likewise helps our neighborhoods.”
In Might, the town shaped a truck parking process power that has been contemplating increasing parking on city-owned land on the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, Brooklyn Navy Yard and JFK airport.
Selvina Brooke-Powers, one other metropolis council member, stated, “We now have to search out the steadiness and proceed the conversations to search out different choices for our vans to have the ability to park, whereas on the similar time not impacting the standard of life for the residents of this group.”
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