Brazen city workers and contractors were still illegally parking near Big Apple government offices in droves with minimal enforcement after their shenanigans were exposed in a damning report this week.
Dozens of illegally-parked cars filled crowded Downtown Brooklyn streets Tuesday morning – many bearing placards from the sheriff’s office, Department of Probation, Housing Preservation and Development and other city agencies on a strip of Adams Street near the Kings County Courthouse.
On nearby Johnson Street, all cars save for one were parked illegally with placards reading “New York State Judicial.” Other vehicles touted fake placards or simply displayed MTA vests in place of a medallion.
“Where else am I supposed to park?” one woman in uniform, who declined to comment, told The Post Tuesday near Adams Street – repeating “there’s no parking” before driving away.
The “dangerously” parked vehicles, mostly driven by city workers and contractors, are part of an average 457 daily illegally-parked cars across 60 blocks in the neighborhood — and a whopping 63 on average just outside the courthouse, according to a report released Monday by city councilman Lincoln Restler.
Yet there’s little enforcement to rein in the chaos, with most of the bad parkers getting off without tickets, the report said.
“The safety, quality of life, and general walkability of Downtown Brooklyn are threatened by rampant illegal parking across the neighborhood,” the report reads. “Illegal parking is more than just a nuisance: illegally parked cars force pedestrians, strollers, wheelchairs and cyclists into traffic, limit visibility, undermine safety, and prevent emergency vehicle access.”
Apart from Kings County Courthouse, other locations overrun with illegal parking are Tillary Street between Prince and Navy streets; FDNY Engine 207 and Ladder 110 on Tillary Street; and the NYPD Transit Special Victims Unit on Gold Street.
More than 60% of those parked outside the Kings County Courthouse had official placards, despite 180 on-street spots for court workers and a 36-vehicle private parking lot on city parkland — the latter of which Restler is eyeing to be turned back over to the public.
“It’s been used as a parking lot for too many years,” he told The Post. “My hope is that we can do a careful review of the many hundreds of on street parking spots that are reserved for city officials all across downtown Brooklyn.”
Of the hundreds of cars skirting the law in Downtown Brooklyn, only 3% had been issued a ticket, “so 97% of illegal vehicles faced no fine or accountability,” the report added. An average of less than 12 tickets were issued per day during the study period from May 26 to June 20.
An NYPD spokesperson pushed back against the report — saying the agency has “aggressively” addressed illegal parking in Downtown Brooklyn this year with 113,429 parking summonses, including 821 placard summonses, 2,018 vehicles towed and 511 vehicles booted this year to date.
The NYPD has also installed “Tow Away Zone” signage at Tillary and Navy streets underneath the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to dissuade scofflaws from parking at an illegal lot.
“The 84th Precinct continues to address illegal parking daily and the Transportation Bureau supplements any additional enforcement and resources as needed,” the rep told The Post.
Restler is now pushing legislation in the City Council to revoke 60,000 city-issued parking placards, as well as a citizen bounty program that would allow New Yorkers to report obstructing vehicles.
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