Broken meters law clarified

With remarkable speed, the City Council passed and Mayor Bloomberg signed into law a revision to the “broken meter rule,” a particularly annoying quirk in the city’s parking regulations.
Under the old rule, motorists could park at a space where there was no parking meter for the full time allowed by the controlling parking sign. If the meter was broken, however, the limit was one hour only.
The new law makes the limit on the sign the parking limit, whether the meter is broken or missing.
Bloomberg signed Intro 812a into law on Monday, December 1, over the objection of the Department of Transportation (DOT), according to Councilmember John Liu, who called passage “a good step toward making the city more livable and less punitive.”
Liu, who chairs the council’s Transportation Committee, said the enactment came “not a moment too soon” after a published report he described as “scathing,” on the recent and huge rise in the city’s parking ticket revenue, which is “soon to approach $1 billion.”
“As the city grapples with multi-billion dollar deficits,” he speculated, “there will be the temptation to issue ever-more parking tickets, which will unfortunately result in more abuses and unfair ticketing.”
As first reported in The Courier on November 12, the bill, introduced by Councilmember Simcha Felder, passed the transportation committee on November 6. It reached the Council a week later, where it was finally passed on November 19.
“The committee will continue to pursue changes to parking rules that serve little purpose other than to regard the driving public as a cash cow,” Liu declared.
One note of caution - the new rule doesn’t take effect until 90 days after it was signed. That should be March 1, but when it comes to parking regulations, it’s “better safe than sorry.”