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Comment by AnonymousPlanet | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to read between the lines, especially from afar, but their motivation to put a positive spin on it could also be political. The phrase "a recent, abstruse change in the parking rules" caught my eye. Maybe they are using these revelations to support an ongoing spat over said rules.

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Yeah, this. NYC issues ~$500 mil in parking tickets per year. If this were a rational issue, someone would look at that and say "Wow. We must be doing something wrong, this is way too many tickets written. Are the street signs clear enough?"

I'm kind of making fun, but they don't want to fix the problem because those tickets are a genuine revenue stream for the city. When the revenue from parking tickets goes down, everyone panics.

See http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/06/news/economy/nypd-tickets/

A different rational response could be to raise parking ticket prices.

I live in NYC. Parking here is so expensive that paying for a parking ticket (if you happen to get caught parking illegally) is cheaper than paying for the parking garage!

A monthly parking garage in my neighborhood (west village, manhattan) can cost $700-800. Parking on the street is not a perfect substitute, but I can get 10-12 parking tickets a month before the cost of parking illegally exceeds the cost of paying for garage space!

Haha, we do this in Miami Beach too. Some streets will tow you, but the others, just a chance of a $17 ticket if you pay within 30 days.

Parking is so expensive and hard to find (like half of the area is parking for "resident sticker only") that most people I know simply park in the residential areas and see what happens.

Making garage space more valuable. Not much further to go before the care and maintenance of a sedan chair becomes economically viable.

I have gotten better at reading signs, but I remember when I first started driving down to NYC several years back. I got a parking ticket that was for $120. I remember trying to read the sign, and I could not make heads or tails of it. Now I just end up paying for garage parking. It can be a waste of money if your there for only 2 hours, but its still better than forking out $120.

Here is the actual rule: §4-08(f)(7) Pedestrian ramps. Alongside or in a manner which obstructs a curb area which has been cut down, lowered or otherwise constructed or altered to provide access for persons with disabilities at a marked or unmarked crosswalk as defined in subdivision (b) of §4-01 of this chapter. A person may stop, stand or park a vehicle alongside or in a manner which obstructs a pedestrian ramp not located within such crosswalk, unless otherwise prohibited.

I'm not surprised that people are having a hard time with it. What does it really say? After reading it 3 or 4 times, I was sure you made a typo. Then I realized you probably copy and pasted it, so it's not a typo.

In the end, I finally concluded that it is legal to park across a disabled access spot in the curb unless it's in a crosswalk or otherwise prohibited.

Which is contrary to common sense, IMO... But then, that's probably why they decided to codify it.

> Which is contrary to common sense, IMO

Its not contrary to common sense - ramps are needed at crosswalks so people can cross the street. A ramp in the middle of the street, with no crosswalk around, is not needed.

You are assuming that the only reason someone in a wheelchair might have to go between the sidewalk and the street is to access a crosswalk to cross the street. That is an incorrect assumption.

Vehicles that carry wheelchairs often load and unload the wheelchair from the street in the rear of the vehicle. Ramps in the middle of the street help people in wheelchairs to enter and leave such vehicles without having to go all the way to a crosswalk.

Line between "putting a positive spin" and "doing a positive thing" can be quite blurry — in this case, I honestly think it's a combination of the two. Of course, beurocrats and politicians often act out of selfish motivations, thinking about public perception instead of public good — but if this motivation leads to them serving public good, what's the difference?

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