Ask A Native New Yorker: Is Double Parking Morally Wrong?

<a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/08/24/photos_you_probably_shouldnt_park_o.php#photo-1">One way to double park</a>...

Are you relatively new to this bustling metropolis? Don't be shy about it, everyone was new to New York once upon a time, except, of course, those battle-hardened residents who've lived here their whole lives and Know It All. One of these lifers works among us at Gothamist—publisher Jake Dobkin grew up in Park Slope and still resides there. He is now fielding questions—ask him anything by sending an email here, but be advised that Dobkin is "not sure you guys will be able to handle my realness." We can keep you anonymous if you prefer; just let us know what neighborhood you live in.

This week's question comes from a New Yorker who got blocked in by double parking and thinks something ought to be done about it.

Hi Jake,

Today's article about the 'culture' of double-parking in some neighborhoods reminded me of a recent predicament:

Last month I had reserved a car-share (car2go) in Brooklyn (Boerum Hill-area). When I arrived, I found the car to be blockaded by a long line of double-parked cars. There was no way out. The other side of the street was being swept... Alternate-side, yada yada. There appeared to be no one else on the street, so I couldn't appeal to anyone to move their car(s) in order for me to get in mine and continue with my business. So I cancelled my car reservation and had to find other means to get where I was going.

I do not own a car, but frequently rent Zipcars and Car2gos for errands. I drive (and park) responsibly but have still received some parking tickets over the years—infuriating, but always understandable. Likewise, I regularly see traffic cops ticketing cars parked on the 'wrong' side of the street... But I'm not sure I've ever seen a row of double-parked cars (i.e. in a bike lane, or in the middle of the street) get tickets.

My question is: why is it apparently a worse offense to park on the wrong side during 'street sweeping' than to double-park and create multiple hazards on the street? Is the potential cost of a double-parking ticket, plus the monthly cost of someone to schlep your car into the middle of the road, still more cost effective than just taking the Alternate Side ticket? Do NYPD and the Department of Finance create an incentive for a worse infraction?

Or am I just being over-sensitive because my own plans were thwarted and everyone else was out having fun (whilst double-parking their cars)?

-Dan

A native New Yorker responds.

Dear Dan,

While you are correct that double-parking is illegal, and you have a right not to be blocked in by inconsiderate drivers treating the street as their personal parking lot, getting upset about it is a waste of time. Like Mister Softee trucks playing their satanic jingle while stopped at the curb, Bodega Cats flouting Health Department regulations by sleeping on the deli counter, or pedestrians crossing against the light while wearing headphones and looking the wrong way, this is one of those situations where the law is almost universally ignored in favor of longstanding New York traditions. At some point in the distant future, when car drivers no longer have such unfair dominion over our city, this may change, but until then, you should deal with it, by picking up your car before or after Alternate Side street cleaning hours.

You do make an interesting point about the ticket costs: it's only $45-65 if you forget to move the car during street cleaning, but it's $115 if you do move it, double-park, and get caught. So if enforcement of both types of infraction was equal, most people would just leave the cars where they were and the streets would never get cleaned.

This is a problem, because not only do uncleaned streets smell and look filthy, the uncleared debris can clog sewer grates and cause flooding. Maybe that's why cops don't enforce the law. Or maybe it's because it'd be super-annoying to have to go down the row of double parked cars handing out tickets—half of them have drivers inside, ready to scream at the officer. Much easier to just go down the other side of the block giving out tickets to unoccupied cars left unmoved.

Thank you, by the way, for using a car-sharing service, rather than owning a car, which is terrible for the environment, and during the 97% of the time it goes undriven, takes up valuable space in our streetscapes that we could use for so many better things, like bike lanes, trees, and pedestrian plazas. The private car owners who boxed you in make up less than half of all New York households—in every borough except Staten Island, the majority of commuters get to work by mass transit.

This minority of car-driving owners who park for free on our blocks are, in effect, receiving a subsidy from the rest of us, worth hundreds of dollars a month (garages cost $300 and up in most neighborhoods). Adding insult to injury, the households receiving this support are generally richer than the median New York family. If they actually paid even a modest fee to leave their property unattended on our streets, we could use that money to repair the crumbling mass-transit system that the majority of us use every day.

Try making this argument to a car-owner, though—you'll get an earful. There's something about owning a vehicle that produces a massive sense of entitlement. You often see this at play in the battles over bike lanes, street safety improvements, or express bus routes. The car owners are often joined by retail business owners, who worry that the loss of even a few parking spaces will make deliveries impossible and somehow devastate their sales (ignoring the fact that a dozen customers on bikes could park in the space taken up by a single car).

These fights also tend to expose whatever racial and class conflicts already exist in the neighborhood, with the car-owners painting the mass transit advocates as gentrifying interlopers who don't understand the long-standing and absolutely inviolable right of drivers to park for free wherever and whenever they want, no matter how many bikers or pedestrians are put in danger, or how many buses are forced to crawl along for lack of a dedicated lane.

But enough griping about these automobile jerks—eventually robot cars will arrive, and they'll make private vehicle ownership even more ridiculous and unnecessary than it is today. Rather than have two million mostly unused private cars littering our streets, we'll have a few hundred thousand on-demand taxis, costing a fraction of what they do today, ready to take you anywhere at a moment's notice. Over night they can pilot themselves back to distant lots near the airports to refuel, and street parking will be a distant memory.

Until then, be strategic. Between Car2Go, Zipcar, Uber, Lyft, Gett (not to mention Citi Bike and all the scooter sharing services about to roll out), you can always find another way to get where you're going. Meditate on how lucky you are to live in a city with so many transit options, and how much better off you are not having to spend half your free time looking for a parking space. I guarantee it'll make you feel better than impotently leaning on a car horn trying to make a double-parker move.

To a greener and more considerate world,

Jake

N.B.: There are some exceptions to the legal ban on double-parking. For instance, some commercial vehicles outside of midtown are allowed to double park as long as a space isn't available. But for almost everyone else, it's illegal, whether you're sitting in the driver's seat, or just stopping for a minute to drop someone off.

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