By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CITY HALL — Two to three mornings every week, Scott Hill participates in a ritual repeated by thousands of drivers across the city.
He wakes up early and heads to his car, where he sits for an hour and half waiting for the street cleaner to come.
"It's really frustrating," said Hill, 43, a tattoo artist who lives on the Upper East Side, as he sat Tuesday morning watching the clock.
But his ritual could be about to change.
The City Council’s Transportation and Sanitation committees held a hearing Tuesday to consider three bills that would significantly ease alternate-side parking regulations, which some council members say have become an undue burden meant more to boost revenue than to keep thoroughfares clean.
The bills would limit the days that alternate-side regulations can be in effect to two a week, as long as streets remain sufficiently clean.
Another proposal would allow cars to park on the restricted side of the street once a sweeper has passed.
"For may city car owners, those 90 minutes or more spent waiting to move their vehicle from one side of the road to another — even after a street sweeper has gone by — is a bi-weekly exercise in frustration that often takes them away from children, family, jobs," Manhattan Borough President testified at the packed hearing in favor of the bills.
He said that current regulations "long ago ceased to be about cleaning the streets" and are "more about sweeping up fines and fees."
Last year, more than 10 million parking summonses were issues by the city, Stringer said — more than New York City's population.
Council members also argued the current rules boost traffic and pollution as cars idle and drivers circle in search of spots.
But John Nucatola, director for the bureau of cleaning and collection at the city’s Department of Sanitation, said that reducing street cleaning would be a huge mistake.
He said fewer cleanings will lead to more litter accumulation, which will attract rats and other vermin and clogs storm drains on residential streets.
"The Department is completely opposed to re-evaluating street cleaning operations," Nucatola said, adding that having 90-minute access to the over 6,000 miles of curb covered by the city's alternate parking rules is crucial to operations.
While he conceded that once a street is swept crews rarely return, he questioned the logistics of informing drivers about where sweepers are.
"I think it would create more and more problems," he said. "How would people know?"
To address communication concerns, Upper Manhattan Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who sponsored one of the bills, suggested using GPS to track sweepers' progress.
Others suggested limiting ticket-issuing powers to Department of Sanitation officers who travel along with the sweeping trucks.
Manhattan drivers who regularly spend hours circling for a spots, applauded new legislation.
"That would be awesome! Oh my gosh," said Patty Lawry, 46, who lives on the Upper East Side, when she heard about the bills.
Earlier, Lawry breathed a huge sigh of relief we she reached her car at 9:05 a.m. Tuesday morning and saw that her windshield was ticket-free.
"It's really stressful," she said of parking on the street. But paying for a garage would be the equivalent of a second rent.
Hill said he managed to amass $600 in parking fines — still cheaper than any garage — during his first year in the neighborhood.
Now, he goes through the waiting ritual nearly every morning before leaving for work since it's impossible to find a spot on the safe side of the street when he gets home at night.
"I think it would make a huge difference," he said of the proposals. "It's not that dirty around here."
