Tow, NY, tow NY, tow!
The Knicks championship was always a dream, but city officials appear to be prolonging their REM sleep to keep the fantasy going: According to the NYPD, starting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, towing crews will remove any car that is parked south of Canal Street — a one-day enforcement effort for the championship parade that many people hope will lead to more law and order against scofflaws.
Seriously, here is what it says on the mayor’s new nyc.gov/knicks website right now:
Of course, there’s a big “if.” It has long been true that the NYPD could restore order, tranquility and loading zones to Lower Manhattan if it was willing to tow away the thousands of illegally parked placard perps who steal public space from residents and business owners. (In other words, crack down on its own employees and other officials in law enforcement.)
Remember, of course, that Streetsblog once counted all the cars parked below Canal Street for the first-ever Placard Census. And we found that virtually all the illegally parked cars downtown — parked at hydrants, in loading zones, in bus lanes and no-standing zones — and placards (real and fake).
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Those illegally parked cars delay buses, complicate legitimate deliveries, endanger cyclists and also reduce fees collected because the NYPD’s traffic enforcement agents generally do not ticket cars that have placards, even if the car is illegally parked or the placard improperly used.
Streetsblog reached out to the NYPD for more information about its plans and, specifically, to determine if the placard élite will be subject to towing after 7 p.m. tonight, but the agency has not gotten back to us. (We will update this story if the agency responds.)
Streetsblog Summer Specialist Emily Smith is currently fanning across Lower Manhattan in search of information. So far, she’s been told by one enforcement agent that the towing will center on the area between West Broadway and Broadway, south of Franklin Street, and begin after 10 p.m. tonight.
Another agent told her that cars would be towed to “wherever there is space” by the “no parking overnight detail.” Car owners should call the First Precinct stationhouse on Ericcson Place to learn where the car was stored. The location will likely be west of West Broadway, the agent said.
It’s unclear if there will be any room to tow cars, given how placard criminals tend to take up all the curbside space in Lower Manhattan.
We will update this story when we hear more.