Parking “Grace Period” begins….so, finish that email
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Finally, New Yorkers are getting a break! As of Sunday, March 21st, 2010, New Yorkers are permitted a 300 second (5 minutes) grace period to move their car from alternate-side parking or from an expired Muni meter before being issued a ticket. That’s a whole five minutes and for us New Yorkers that counts for a lot.
As The New York Daily News reports, that although Bloomberg warned that the law would lead only to chaos, “the City Council overwhelmingly over-rode the mayor’s veto, wanting to put an end to “gotcha” tickets.”
“Other cities have this [grace period] and it has not proven to be chaotic,” City Council Speaker Christine QuinnQuinn said. “It’s a nice and appropriate amount of latitude to give New Yorkers in a place where we all know it’s not easy to park.”
Of 10 million tickets issued in fiscal year 2008, 276,000 were written within five minutes of alternate-side parking restrictions going into effect.
Council analysts say the new bill won’t cost the cash-strapped city any money: Plenty of people will still get tickets after the six-minute mark.
The city recently hired scores of new traffic enforcement agents.
