Tribeca-Focused Study Examines Perennial Placard Parking Problem

Placards like this one are displayed on many private cars illegally parked in truck loading zones in Tribeca. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Parking placard abuse is an old, seemingly instransient, New York City problem. But it’s never been documented like this, especially not in Tribeca. 

A new study by StreetsblogNYC, a transportation reform group, reveals in detail just how rampant the illegal use of those “permits” are—whether real or fake—mostly by city, state and federal workers.

The “Ultimate Placard Census [1],” as Streetsblog calls it, checked every car parked in large section of Tribeca and part of the Civic Center, an area bordered by Canal, Chambers,West Broadway and Centre. Placard bearing vehicles occupied 65% of all “legal or potentially legal” parking spaces, “which does not count the scores of placard cars occupying illegal parking spaces that are supposed to be set aside for other uses (such as meters or truck loading and unloding),” the study found.

“Those placards and fakes allow the owner to park for free (legally or illegally) in one of the world’s most congested places,” the report said.

Streetsblog provides an interactive map with a blue dot for every car bearing a placard or something else in its place. Readers can click on each symbol to see a photo of the permit or other object used to avoid ticketing, as well as the parking rules that apply to the location. 

Among the placard replacements that Streetsblog observed, along with the fakes, were agency vests, hats, safety helmets, fake badges, patches, business cards and hand-written notes. One note read, “Please don’t ticket me.”

The study also found that of the 727 cars with real or fake placards, more than 8% came from out of state. And, on an average, there were 12.5 parking tickets and four speed camera tickets per car.

Below Chambers Street, the Downtown Alliance conducted its own study of placard parking on a Gridlock Alert Day, a day when the Department of Transportation urged drivers to use alternate means of transportation. On the one block of Murray Street between West Broadway and Church Street, according to the study, nine placard bearing cars were parked illegally in truck loading zones. Another 17 vehicles with placards, it said, occupied spaces along the short block of Fulton Street, between William and Gold.

Those reports, along with the city’s newly established Office of Curb Management [2], prompted Community Board 1’s Transportation and Street Activity Committee to again take up the problem of placard abuse. Committee co-chair Jess Coleman called the illegal use of placards “a hindrance to so many of the things we are fighting for, whether we are talking about installing a microhub, extending a curb or simply changing the curb regulation on a street in our district.” 

Coleman, who introduced the discussion, noted several of the proposed bills and other initiatives that over the years have been introduced as possible solutions to the problem, from abolishing agency permits altogether to returning ticketing authority to the Department of Transportation. None have been adopted. Coleman said he favors citizen enforcement, mirroring an existing program that allows private citizens to report idling trucks through a web app or 911 and relayed directly to the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH).

“It is the only way to tackle this problem,” Coleman said, “to take the issue entirely away from the NYPD and the city workers who actually are the ones benefiting from this.”

In a Streetsblog opinion piece [2], Jessica Lappin, president of the Downtown Alliance, called on city agencies to “end the generous issuing of parking placards and rigorously account for those already in use.” Lappin also said the city needs to “reclaim curb space for uses that benefit more people,” such as microdelivery hubs, bike parking, electric vehicles charging stations and space for containerized trash collection.

“If the mayor wants to leave a lasting streetscape legacy,” she wrote, “he has the opportunity to free up precious curb space for better uses. Now is the time to act on placard reform.”

The Mayor’s Office did not respond to an email request for comment.