NEW YORK CITY — Thousands of New Yorkers have been ticketed for parking in legal spots across the city for what may have generated nearly $2 million in revenue for the NYPD, a local data analysis blog found.
The spaces are those in front of a pedestrian ramp in the middle of the block where there is no crosswalk. Since a traffic law was changed in 2009, it is perfectly legal to park in these spaces. But according to an investigation of open data by IQuantNY — a blog that analyzes open data from New York City — the NYPD has issued thousands of tickets for these spaces in the past two years.
The most-ticketed spot was at 575 Ocean Ave. in Brooklyn, where the NYPD issued over $48,000 in parking fines in the last two and half years.
Overall, the blog identified 1,966 spots that have issued tickets for this kind of offense, for a total of $1.7 million a year in tickets. Not all of the spots have yet been investigated to determine if they are legal spots, but a random selection of 30 of these spots showed that all 30 were legal.
The law about pedestrian ramps prohibits parking in front of them, but only when there is a crosswalk or an “unmarked crosswalk,” which generally means at a major intersection, not a T intersection.
This may be a bit confusing, and apparently it was to the NYPD too. The NYPD responded to IQuantNY’s founder Ben Wellington to say that they acknowledged an error had been made.
“Mr. Wellington’s analysis identified errors the department made in issuing parking summonses. It appears to be a misunderstanding by officers on patrol of a recent, abstruse change in the parking rules. We appreciate Mr. Wellington bringing this anomaly to our attention,” the NYPD told IQuantNY in a statement.
The NYPD said that when the rule changed, only traffic agents were trained, but that other NYPD officers were not aware, and that the department has now sent a message to update officers about the change.
NYPD had not responded to a request for a comment from DNAinfo.
Check out this map, created by the blog that shows the top 1000 spots for pedestrian ramp tickets to see if one of them is your neighborhood.
