De Blasio's Placard Abuse Solution: Get Rid Of Placards

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio has a straightforward fix for parking placard abuse: Get rid of placards. The Democratic mayor announced plans Thursday to eventually replace thousands of city-issued placards with a digital system that will help traffic agents spot illegally parked cars.

The shift is one piece of de Blasio's newest effort to staunch a problem that has infuriated New Yorkers: Public employees using their official permits to flout parking laws with impunity.

"We as the administration are ready to do things that have never been done before to stop placard abuse," de Blasio said. "We're ready to use the latest technology and the toughest enforcement to ensure that parking spaces actually go to the New Yorkers who deserve them, and not people who break the rules."

More than 125,000 city-issued placards were in circulation last year, 50,000 of which belonged to the Department of Transportation, the mayor's office said. The use of placards has greatly expanded during de Blasio's tenure — there were only 67,297 around in 2008, according to The New York Times.

The DOT is currently replacing 300 of its paper placards with window stickers, which it will use exclusively by the end of this year pending the results of that pilot program, the mayor's office said. Stickers are harder to fake and to pass from person to person, de Blasio said.

Eventually, the city will roll out an electronic "pay by plate" system that will link city officials' parking privileges to their license plates, which will register cars as legally or illegally parked, the mayor's office said in a news release.

The first version of the $52 million system will be in place by 2021, according to the mayor's office. That's when the city plans to have phased out all physical placards.

The city also plans to stiffen penalties for workers who abuse their parking privileges. Those caught misusing a placard three times will have the permit permanently revoked under a new city rule that will be in place by this spring, City Hall said.

That will be coupled with an effort to track illegal placards and a dedicated team of 10 traffic enforcement agents who will target scofflaws in Chinatown and Downtown Brooklyn, the neighborhoods hit hardest by placard abuse, the mayor's office said.

"The people of New York City get really angry when they see the folks that they pay the salaries of abusing this situation and taking away parking spaces from hardworking New Yorkers," de Blasio said.

De Blasio announced a citywide crackdown on placard abuse nearly two years ago. The number of NYPD summonses issued for illegal parking with a placard on display has since risen 93 percent from 2016, City Hall said. But the mayor has nonetheless drawn fire for taking so long to further address the problem.

The City Council is considering its own proposals to tackle placard abuse, including one that would create a single application process for city-issued placards. Council Speaker Corey Johnson urged de Blasio to get behind the bills, which he called "the strongest attempt to rein in placard abuse in City history."

"I’m thrilled the Mayor has seen the light on placard abuse & look forward to working with him to remove this scourge from our streets," Johnson, a Democrat, said Thursday on Twitter.