New York, NY – Getting Religious About Street Parking

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    New York, NY – Car owners in this city derive enormous satisfaction from holy days, even if they are not religious.

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    Nothing delights them more than a religious holiday, any religious holiday that liberates them from the city's alternate-side parking rules.

    The New York City Council is the one who is vested with the supreme authority to suspend alternate-side rules. This it does. Faithfully.

    By official count, there are 35 such holidays through the year, spread across 44 days. Council members love few things more than adding days to the list. They have done so with fair regularity.

    But alternate-side parking rules were created for the common weal: to make it possible for Sanitation Department sweepers to do their stuff.

    Once upon a time, the main exceptions to the rules were legal holidays, when city employees are off, and certain days on which observant Jews are forbidden to drive: Yom Kippur, for example.

    But any privilege for a particular ethnic or religious group is not allowed to exist in this city without others' claiming it as well. And so, over the years, the Council has steadily expanded the exemption list to include all sorts of holidays with no inherent proscription against driving: Ash Wednesday, Purim, the Asian Lunar New Year to name a few.

    Council members describe this habit of theirs as a way to honor new communities in an ever-changing city. That's how a group knows it has made it here. We keep the streets dirty in its name. [NY Times]


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    6 Comments
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    biGwheeel
    biGwheeel
    16 years ago

    Anon. 9:18AM There’s no irony in that situation. It’s simply a decision by the Department of Sanitation. Those areas that the Sanit. Dep’t judges to be [kept] cleaner get fewer alternate-side days.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    wow, i would like to see one of those.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    once a month wud be more then enough.

    its not like they pick up the trash- they only push it a little further.

    other bug cities like chicago have it once in 2 months and they actually have a machine that sucks in the garbage.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    the sweeper doesnt clean anything ave xyandz dont have alternate side at all and they are very clean it is just a way to give tickets look at last year when bloomberg didnt suspend alternate side even though the sweepers couldnt even go out because of the snow and also it doesnt take three hours for a sweeper to go through the street why cant you park after they go thru and many times they dont come at all but then again who needs them

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    What’s ironic is the areas that have fewer street cleaning days per week are generaly cleaner.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    Alternate side of the street parking regulations are just a way for the city to make money through ticketing. How many other cities have alternate side of the street parking? New Yorkers need to learn how to clean up after themselves and not litter. Drivers would be happier if they got rid of it.