By Michael Ventura
DNAinfo Senior Editor
MANHATTAN — A proposed City Council bill would legalize double parking in some situations, the New York Post reported.
Those situations include drivers waiting for parking spots that are about to become available and for people dropping off or picking up passengers, the paper reported. The bill is expected to be introduced this week and already has the backing of three council members.
The apparent motivation for the bill comes as the number of double parking tickets has increased each year during the Bloomberg administration, from 806,112 in 2002 to 1.3 million last year, the Post said.
"This is not a new phenomenon, that people wait for somebody to pull out of a parking spot," City Councilman Vincent Gentile of Brooklyn, one of the bill's sponsors, told the Post. "But it seems like what's changed is that common sense has gone out the window in terms of the agents."
Gentile said some of his Bay Ridge constituents have been slapped with $115 tickets for simply pulling over to drop someone off at the doctor's office. He told the Post ticketing agents were "going around and playing gotcha with people."
The bill is expected to be vetoed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It's expected to be introduced by City Councilman Peter Vallone, of Queens, with the support of Gentile and David Greenfield, of Brooklyn.
The mayor's office couldn't comment on the bill directly since it hadn't been introduced yet.
"Our approach has been to reduce double parking by reducing the amount of time New Yorkers have to spend alternate-side parking their cars, as we've done already in parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx," Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna told the Post.