Fixing alternate side snow job

The City Council is set to pass a bill more than a year in the making, that would automatically suspend Alternate Side Parking (ASP) restrictions whenever two or more inches of snow falls anywhere in New York City.
The bill, “Intro 546-A” was prompted after a blizzard of parking tickets followed two inches of snow on February 14, 2007 - that was immediately frozen into a Gotham-sized sheet of ice by freezing sleet and rain.
Thousands of New Yorkers, including City Councilmember Hiram Monserrate, got the dreaded, orange-enveloped alternate side parking tickets, even though street sweeping operations did not take place.
The regulations were passed in the early 1950s to make it easier to clean the streets. With the advent of the mechanical street sweeper, having routes of empty curbsides was a must.
The signs however retain the image of the “street broom” used by sanitation workers in pre-machine days.
“Alternate side parking was created to keep our streets clean, not to keep city coffers full,” said Monserrate, a co-sponsor of the bill. “They shouldn’t have to risk driving in dangerous conditions when street cleaning trucks don’t,” he added.
The bill would suspend the regulations for 48 hours, whenever the two-inch threshold was reached or exceeded, “as determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service or other appropriate governmental entity.”
A year ago, on December 18, the council’s Committee on Transportation, chaired by Councilmember John Liu, held a hearing on what was then Intro 546. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty testified.
“The commissioners had reservations about the necessity of the bill,” said a spokesperson for Liu. “You’ll notice the ‘A’ which means it was amended,” she added as one reason for the extended period since its introduction.
The final version finally sailed through a joint meeting of Liu’s Transportation and Councilmember David Weprin’s Finance Committee on Tuesday, December 16.
After the vote, Liu observed that given that street cleaning was the reason for ASP restrictions, the change “would seem to make sense.”
“Unfortunately, common sense is too often absent from the city’s parking regulations,” he observed.
Expected to pass by a wide margin when the full council meets on Thursday, December 18, the new “common sense” rule will still require Mayor Bloomberg’s signature, which is not assured, given the city’s current financial situation.
Liu conceded that “In this time of fiscal crisis, there will be more pressure to raise revenue any which way possible.”
Still, he insisted, “Revenue simply should not be raised in a manner where enforcement is technically justified but contradicts the very spirit of law, which is why we are making this change.”
Judging from the recent cold and snowy weather in other parts of the country, passage can’t come a moment too soon - the change doesn’t take effect for 30 days after it is signed into law.
Historically, February is the worst snow month in the New York City area, so there still may be time before the new law is needed. Keep your fingers crossed.