Over 3,500 311 Complaints About Parking Placard Abuse Were Made In The Last Year. Have They Accomplished Anything?

via @placardabuse

More than a year has passed since Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to rein in widespread abuse of the city's parking placard system. Promising a "zero tolerance" policy for cops and other city employees who use their permits to park illegally, the mayor unveiled a host of new enforcement actions aimed at cutting down on the practice—measures that led the NYPD to tow a grand total of 89 vehicles in the following year.

But while the mayor's so-called crackdown may not have done much to clear the city's streets of scofflaw parkers—and plenty of critics say that it hasn't—the campaign did at least give New Yorkers the option to report the "improper use" of parking permits to 311.

On Tuesday, Localize.city crunched the numbers to determine where placard abuse is most commonly reported. They found that a total of 3,663 complaints have been filed since the 311 campaign was launched in May of 2017, with the worst of the corruption coming in specific areas of Queens, the Bronx, and Lower Manhattan.

The leading placard abuse hotspot, which logged 87 complaints in the last 16 months, is the intersection of Shore Front Parkway and Beach 102 Lane in Far Rockaway. Woodside, near 30-06 54th Street, narrowly finished second with 86 complaints; and University Heights around 2420 Sedgwick Avenue came in third place with 75 complaints, many of which were lodged this past summer.

When Localize looked at the number of placard grievances by neighborhood, the Financial District led the way with 2.56 complaints per 1,000 residents, closely followed by Woodside, Midtown, the Rockaways, and Maspeth.

Downtown Brooklyn—the "Wild West of placard parking abuse"—was conspicuously absent from the rankings, though the report notes that the neighborhood ranks among the highest for overall parking complaints. Localize also points out that reports of placard abuse make up just 1 percent of all parking complaints.

"Although a lot of New Yorkers know that placard abuse is a problem, and City officials are trying to do something about it—including creating a new avenue for complaints through 311—the number of official complaints are relatively small at this point," said Localize.city data scientist Michal Eisenberg.

That might have something to do with the relative newness of the 311 option, or the fact that New Yorkers are likely more incentivized to report violations, like blocking a driveway, that directly screw up their lives.

But it also probably has something to do with the reality that, over and over again, New Yorkers who do report placard corruption are swiftly ignored, lied to, or outright harassed. Maybe the problem is that so many police officers seem to be operating with their own set of laws when it comes to unclogging the city's streets? Or perhaps the mayor's vow to end placard corruption, an announcement he made only weeks after issuing thousands of new parking permits to city employees, was not made entirely in good faith?

The better question might be: Does registering a placard abuse complaint with the city actually accomplish anything at all?