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When I need to park at a hardware store for 15 minutes, .50, or 1.00, or even more, seems reasonable if it gets your big, empty SUV and your needlessly shiny bumpers out of my way.

7:41 AM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

Mine is a Subaru Legacy.  It is not as tall as an SUV, but it is long, gets lousy gas milage and has plenty of cargo space.  I use it to carry equipment and supplies.  Yet, if I don't have to climb the hill, or a bridge, I tow a trailer behind my mountain bike.  Parking problems are costing home owners in congested areas.  Way more home improvement workers drive and seek to park near their job sites than is considered by DOT studies.  When we get there, we find the streets clogged by vehicles that don't go anywhere or carry anything, except occasionaly on weekends.  I am glad to see the SUV fad is fading. 

8:13 AM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

IN NY, where space is such a premium, huge SUVs represent a waste of that space to some of our, maybe, more independent-minded neighbors who appreciate a city where such vehicles are unnecessary. There is also the preconception about their owners, which is kinda funny to me (and possibly supported through scientific studies), that such huge, glossy vehicles exist as the subconscious desire by their owners to inflate their self-worth (and, possibly, some other of their anatomical features).

8:18 AM 02/27/2013 | -1 Votes

Blood pressure!!! High blood pressure??? What high blood pressure?!?!?!
Brownstoners raising families in small apartments might like to use their SUV's as personal space, to get away from the cramped quarters.  I would't call this unnecassary, just characteristic of the have and have-not gap.
I got to go find parking near the shower stall I am working in today.  Stay calm.............

 
 

8:51 AM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

You're complaining that they're raising the price of parking, but it's already a massively underpriced resource. If they priced it correctly (that is, at the market clearing rate), then there would always be a spot available on every block. Instead they underprice it and then try to make up for that by imposing an arbitrary time limit on each space.
Parking is not an inviolable right. NYC is the densest city in the US, and space is a huge premium - and it should be priced accordingly. It's also not some marker of the middle class; most of this city is both walkable and transit accessible, and you don't need a car. A car is a luxury.
If you treasure your parking that much, then either rent a garage spot, or move to the suburbs. You'll get no sympathy by whining about how the city is no longer subsidizing your car-oriented lifestyle.

10:08 AM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

I'm sorry, but are we talking about the same thing?  The muni-meters on the streets I frequent in Manhattan are limited to COMMERCIAL vehicles during the day, and thus are not about RESIDENTS keeping cars parked on the street - they are about the parking problems of service providers and workers, who use vehicles to get from job-to-job and bring needed materials and tools with them.  These are two different conversations.

11:01 AM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

A couple of years ago, some asshat in an SUV parked on top of my car.  I guess he couldn't find a sopt so he made one by using the "air rights" above the hood of my car. 

12:06 PM 02/27/2013 | 0 Votes

So... this went from a muni-meter discussion to an SUV hate fest, to commercial parking issues, and back to suv hate?  The internet is awesome.
a few comments:   muni meter pricing has already gone up in many areas in brooklyn - mostly shopping avenues.  Every so often you hear about a new outrage over munimters being put in place for the first 100 feet or so of the side streets surrounding these blocks, even though the sidestreets are very clearly residential.  Also, on any given day, i'll literally see 3-5 vultures (meter maid cops) hovering the same few blocks.  Really?  Do we really need to pay 3-5 salaries for this?
re: subarus :D  dave - i enjoy the hell out of my heavily modified wrx, and it gets far worse gas mileage than even my jeep.  While i do believe in treading lightly, it's not just lesbians and tree huggers who drive subarus. No need for me to go into a fanboy paragraph, but i appreciate their vehicles, and not just the fast ones, lol.
re: suv's  - i have a Jeep (not "a jeep") .  It's not new. it's not shiny. It's got a big old iron 6 liter v8, and it's lifted with big mud tires, and pre-dates the term "suv" (they were called ORV's back when) - and i've never accidentally driven over a smaller vehicle due to not seeing it lol. (i find i'm one of the few drivers who still actually turns around when backing up) - and yet i get lumped in with people driving their excursions, yukon denali XXL, or whatever,  and other family haulers (even when no family is present) - in my case, people tend not to park too close because looking at it, it seems like to do so might be painful.   It's filthy with mud, has a winch and the associated guard, and has exposed recovery points front and rear.  I would also never ask compensation if you damage my truck while parking, because frankly.. if you CAN damage the hulk, just by parking..  i'm probably going to want to buy you a beer, and talk shop. Anyway - while i never feel the need to justify owning it, i use it to kick winter's ass (minor celebirty with the local precinct during the blizzard a couple of years ago, when half their vans were stuck, and i was snatching them out as easily as a prius exiting a driveway on a spring morning.) I also enjoy hunting, fishing, and relaxing on my property upstate, which very few vehicles would be able to access unless prepared similarly.  I also use it for work related hauls and tows, and all my pals who tease me about owning the "earth raper" as they call it, shut up real quick when there's a foot or more of snow on the ground and they need a favor. Unfortunately, most sport utility vehicles lack both the sport and utility that they hint at... and as such are just tall station wagons driven by solitary drivers. My sub-compact/ wifemobile commuter gets 37-40mpg depending on the season, so i like to think it balances out.
greenmt - I use 2 of my vehicles for business (not concurrently, lol) - and ran into the same issues as you. For a few years, while my business was largely on-site visit based,  I caved, and bought into the dmv/ dot's frequent flyer ticket program. I noticed in my statements that most of the fines are actually discounted, and roughly half (or a little less) are dismissed altogether.  ie:  of 20 tickets in a given month, i'll only get charged on 8-10 of them. Anyway - any leftover balance at the end of the year, you can apply to the following year's pre-payment.  In this way, it's at least a predictable business expense, and you'd be surprised at how much of the stress it removes.  I haven't been on this program for the past few years, so hopefully it's still around.  I forget exactly what it's called, but it was a pre-paid violations program, and the application went through the dmv.  Mainly geared towards commercial vehicles, but that doesn't mean commercial plates.  The cars in question were registered to my LLC, and as such, were eligible.  Insurance rates were no different than the same vehicles insured privately, for me at least.  Multiple drivers or whatnot might ultimately affect that.

6:57 AM 02/28/2013 | 0 Votes

Found it:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/ht...
It's called the stipulated fine program, but seems a little different from when i was enrolled.  I was never enrolled in the fleet program for instance, or perhaps they were one and the same.. i simply submitted one application, and they put me in the appropriate program.  The details at the link are light, so i don't know if they've imposed any new limits, such as commercial plates only... but it's worth a look.   It really did remove my stress levels, even though the cost was obviously more than simply finding legitimate parking  (but perhaps not when you factor in the cost of stress, plus broken down, an hourly wage and the time wasted looking for such parking)  - My favorite spots were school zone spots.  It's a no-tow violation, and were almost always dismissed or heavily reduced. Expired meter spots were also a high ratio of dismissals. (hydrants were a low ratio of dismissal, but were always discounted.  Be aware though, a hydrant violation is a potential tow, although i never was.)

8:13 PM 02/28/2013 | 0 Votes