New Program To Crack Down On Placard Abuse In North Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NY — A new program cracking down on cars that park illegally using city placards will start in North Brooklyn before expanding to the rest of the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.

The program — which arms traffic cops with new digital readers to investigate the placards — will begin next week in the Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, which extends from the north edge of Prospect Park to Greenpoint.

Officials said the program will have a special focus on Downtown Brooklyn, which has long been a hotspot for placard abuse.

“Placard abuse clogs our streets and weakens New Yorkers’ trust in the government that serves them," de Blasio said. "There’s no place for it in our city, and I’m proud to take this next step toward a fairer and more accountable system."

The new program will give Traffic Enforcement Agents handheld electronic devices that will be able to scan placards and determine if it is legitimately issued, belongs in the vehicle it's placed in and if it's being used properly, according to de Blasio.

It comes years after de Blasio first vowed to create a digital enforcement for placard abuse by government workers, which has long been a frustration for New Yorkers and watchdogs, including a Twitter account that provides near-hourly instances of fraud and violations.

Just this year, investigators found that cops did not properly respond to 72 percent of 311 calls about illegal parking. Cops didn't show up at all to the remaining 28 percent of calls, but claimed they did and marked them as resolved, according to a City Council letter.

The mayor contended Thursday that the NYPD has already ramped up cracking down on the placard abuse this year, pointing to a 21 percent increase in the number of summonses for improperly parked vehicles with placards compared to 2020.

He said the Brooklyn program will expand to lower Manhattan by mid-January and the rest of the city by the end of January.

But, that timeline will pass the brunt of the expansion to Mayor-elect Eric Adams, who has a storied track record of not tackling his own staff's placard misuse during his time as Brooklyn Borough President.