Traffic Cameras Could Soon Catch You Blocking NYC Intersections

NEW YORK, NY — New York City could soon start snapping photos of drivers who stall traffic by blocking intersections. An amendment to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's state budget submitted last week would let the city test cameras to enforce so-called "blocking the box" violations in Manhattan to help reduce congestion.

The legislation would give the city authority to install cameras at certain intersections below 60th Street to catch cars that pull into intersections even when there's not room to get across them. The city already uses such cameras to ticket drivers for running red lights.

Cuomo's Fix NYC panel recommended the program in its January report alongside congestion pricing, a scheme to toll cars and trucks entering central Manhattan to raise money for the city's public transit system.

Blocking the box is a major driver of traffic congestion but the NYPD wrote just 2,544 tickets for it in 2016, the panel's report says. That's less than a quarter of one percent of all moving violations recorded that year. By contrast, more than 194,000 violations were issued for disobeying a red light or another "traffic control device."

Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to ramp up block-the-box enforcement in October with more cops, additional markings and updated signage at 30 troublesome intersections in Manhattan and 20 outside the borough. That's part of de Blasio's five-point plan to reduce traffic congestion throughout the city.

The city Department of Transportation was "pleased" to see the camera proposal in the Fix NYC report and is "encouraged to see this enforcement authority included in the 30-day amendments, which the City continues to review," DOT spokesman Scott Gastel said in a statement Friday.

Cuomo's budget amendments include three other short-term proposals from the Fix NYC report. One would empower the panel to determine what technology taxis and for-hire vehicles should be required to install so they could be effectively surcharged under the congestion pricing plan.

Other proposals include a state review of licensing and oversight of charter, commuter and tourist buses; and a Fix NYC review of potential fixes to the city's parking placard program, which workers and officials often abuse.

But the governor's budget still does not include a congestion pricing plan itself, which is likely to become a political flashpoint in Albany. The Fix NYC proposals will only come to fruition if they're in the final state budget, which the state Legislature must approve by April 1.

(Lead image: A pedestrian crosses a congested Times Square intersection in January. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)