NYC Street Parking | NY City Sights

Our friend, Larry Berezin at New York Parking Ticket just told us about a new parking ticket scam.

Until December 2008, you could get a parking ticket if you parked in front of a pedestrian ramp located in the middle of the long street of a ‘T’ intersection, even if the ramp didn’t have an painted crosswalk or lights. The ticket was $165, which is a pretty expensive ticket.

Well, in December 2008 the Department of Transportation (DOT) realized that this ticket didn’t make any sense and changed the law. Now, you can park on the ‘major street’ of a ‘T’ intersection as long as there aren’t any traffic signals, painted crosswalks, or all-way stop signs.

But it seems traffic enforcement is still giving out those $165 tickets and people are paying them!

Check out Larry’s blog for more tips on avoiding and defending parking tickets.

Two of our readers wrote in to ask where they can park a commercial vehicle, like a U-Haul van or truck. Turns out it’s not so easy.

Let’s say you’ve rented a U-Haul to move and need to double park on the street. In most situations, you can double-park to ‘expeditiously’ make pickups and deliveries – as long as stopping, standing, or parking is not prohibited, and as long as there isn’t a free parking space or loading zone within 100 fee that that you could be using. But we all know that loading and unloading a U-Haul isn’t expeditious, so be careful where you double park.

If you’re looking to park your van during the day or overnight, the New York Department of Transportation (DOT) simply doesn’t allow commercial vehicles to park for more than three hours and doesn’t allow overnight parking on a residential street from 9pm – 5am on any street. If you do get a ticket for overnight parking, you have to prove that you were ‘actively engaged in business’ at a location within three blocks of where you got the summons.

So find a garage that doesn’t charge you an arm and a leg to park overnight, and you’ll save yourself a bundle in parking tickets. We’re asking our garage partners to let us know if they’ll take a large van or commercial truck, and then we’ll post the list of garages on our site and on this blog.

Here are some locations where you can park a van, trailer, or truck:

QuikPark — 223 W 46th between 8th & Broadway, open lot on the North side of the street. The average box-car truck rate is $50.00 for 24 hours. Call ahead at 917-837-0193 to reserve your spot.

Parking a commercial vehicle is actually pretty complicated stuff, so [...] Read the rest of this post »

We got an email from a subscriber asking about a particular street parking sign, and want to share our answer.

Dear Park It! Guides:
My daughter just moved to the city and the sign in front of her building looks like this.

What the heck does that mean?
Does it mean no standing unless you are a commercial vehicle but cars can park (you can park but not stand?) between 7am and 7pm with a metered ticket but only for 3 hours? and after 7pm free? (til 7am) is the 3 hours for the ticket or the after 7pm?? and then free all day Sunday???? and just to be sure if it had anything to do with the “alternate side parking” which I totally don’t understand this street would indicate it was involved in that practice?

Dear Confused in Connecticut:

NYC street parking signs can be very confusing. We consulted with Larry Berezin at New York Parking Ticket and he confirmed our answer, which is: [...] Read the rest of this post »