New York – Op Ed By Quinn And Greenfield: Why We’re Overriding The Mayor’s Veto Of Parking Stickers Ban

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    New York – New Yorkers are all too familiar with the impossible-to-remove parking stickers that the Department of Sanitation pastes on cars that are not moved properly on street cleaning days. Remnants of these neon stickers often persist on car windows for months, despite vigorous efforts to scrape them off. They add insult to the injury of a fine that can cost as much as $65.

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    That’s why, back in January, we in the City Council overwhelmingly voted in favor of our legislation to prohibit the use of these stickers by the city — legislation that Mayor Bloomberg promptly vetoed.

    The Bloomberg administration would have us believe that without these stickers, the city could not properly clean the streets. In fact, they have gone so far as to argue that if you take these stickers away, we will go back to the mean, dirty streets of yesteryear.

    Neither the facts nor common sense support this argument.

    When the Department of Sanitation first started using stickers in 1988, the city’s street cleanliness ratings were 73.1%. Eight years later, street cleanliness ratings had gone up — to 73.2%. That’s almost a decade without any improvement. This fact clearly contradicts the mayor’s argument that stickers were responsible for cleaner streets.

    Then, beginning in 1996, street cleanliness ratings began to rise. What happened? Well for one thing, the city increased funding for street cleaning and waste collection by nearly $200 million between fiscal years 2002 and 2012. And the Sanitation Department started to make clean streets a top priority, focusing its efforts on identification of problem areas, increasing resources and stepping up enforcement.

    That wasn’t all. The Council worked with the mayor to increase collection from corner litter baskets throughout the city. Not surprisingly, emptying trash bins more frequently led to an improvement in street cleanliness ratings: When collection routes increased from 63 in 2001 to 102 in 2005, the city’s overall street cleanliness rating went up almost 10 points.

    In addition, the number of Business Improvement Districts has almost doubled — to 67 — in the past 15 years. These BIDs provide valuable funding to supplement sanitation services in their neighborhoods.

    And in recent years, the city’s Work Experience Program has placed thousands of additional workers in jobs cleaning litter and maintaining litter baskets.

    Finally, the city doubled its efforts to clean up vacant lots to almost 5,000 lots per year and improved outreach and education through city-sponsored litter campaigns while increasing enforcement of illegal dumping laws.

    All of these factors contributed to the clean streets New Yorkers now enjoy. To claim that this improvement is based on parking stickers — and to insist that if we get rid of the stickers, we are going back to dirty streets — is disingenuous and insulting.

    New Yorkers who park illegally are rightly issued fines. Those fines serve as ample deterrent from repeat offenses. Branding vehicles with stickers is a punitive practice with no measurable results. Today we’ll vote to override the mayor’s veto, and make life a little easier for drivers in all five boroughs.

    Quinn, who represents the West Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, is speaker of the City Council. Greenfield is a City Council member representing Midwood, Boro Park and Bensonhurst.

    Quinn, who represents the West Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, is speaker of the City Council. Greenfield is a City Council member representing Midwood, Boro Park and Bensonhurst.


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    13 Comments
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    12 years ago

    I sometimes take photos with my cell phone of the wreck left behind by Sanitation crews. They collect the garbage, spilling, sometimes dragging plastic bags while they burst and spill contents, and leave things strewn everywhere. Trucks were once equipped with shovels to clean up such mishaps, but I have not seen any lately.

    My street is ticketed regularly, but the sweepers are not there every single day they should be. The sweeper trucks often leave the street messier than it was before they came. And someone wants to continue to punish car owners?

    RebKlemson
    RebKlemson
    12 years ago

    right, because alternate side does something. fools

    12 years ago

    fyi u can remove it very easily by pouring lighter fluid lighting it 4 like 5 sec. and it peels right off.good 2 know

    12 years ago

    I disagree. For many drivers, only the fear of these stickers keeps them from violating the parking rules. The police should keep on using them.

    getitright
    getitright
    12 years ago

    thank you both for veoing hizzonours insanity.

    try sticking his cokpit window with ne of these and see if airports get any cleaner as a result.

    hes looney thats the bottom line and council is on target this time .

    keep up the good work quinn and greeny.

    12 years ago

    I’ve come to learn over the years, that with Bloomberg there’s always something behind everything he does or enforces. And more times than not (if not all the time) it’s about money, money, and again money….to say that these stickers are about to keep the streets of becoming dirty again, is just a lie and an utter embarrassment to the mayor of NYC. But I’m having trouble to come up with the real deal as to why he w’d want these stickers thrown at us. Does he own a sticker or printing company that we’re not aware of?

    basya
    basya
    12 years ago

    Actually, it is easy to remove with Goo Gone, which can be purchased at a hardware store.

    family_guy
    family_guy
    11 years ago

    I have a better idea for Greenfield and Quinn. Instead of wasting our time with this silly sticker issue, why don’t they just reduce the obscenely high fines and put an end to the ticket blitz. Instead of having thousands of cops running around giving out parking tickets for mostly harmless infractions (like not getting back to your car before the meter runs out); why not have these cops try to hunt down real criminal offenders that are making this city more dangerous.
    Crime rates are going up, but our mayor and city council are more interested in having police officers give you tickets. We all know the truth. Parking tickets have become a big revenue stream for the city and Mr. Greenfield and his partner in crime, Christine Quinn, just don’t want to give up all that money. So now they have to pretend they feel your pain and waste everyone’s time with this sticker nonsense.