By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER MANHATTAN — A City Councilman’s battle against alternate-side parking regulations is heating up, as he takes aim at what he calls an archaic entry in the rulebooks.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who represents Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, is taking to the phones, Twitter and the streets to gather constituent support and signatures for his proposed bill to change the city’s alternate-side parking restrictions.
Rodriguez has proposed changing the current system in order to allow drivers to safely park their cars on the restricted side of the street once a Department of Sanitation sweeper has passed, instead of having to wait until the end of the street cleaning schedule, as stated on the signs.
He first argued in the fall that such rules placed an undue burden on constituents who had better things to do than wait in their cars until they could park again, once a street sweeper had already cleaned the roadway.
"While we can all appreciate the need for street cleaning in our neighborhoods, it is clear to anyone in these neighborhoods that the regulations are posing a major quality of life issue to our residents," Rodriguez said in a public statement.
Critics have said that the changes would wreak havoc on the city's ability to ticket street cleaning scofflaws, by making every street cleaning ticket subject to argument. Rodriguez's office has suggested using GPS in the Sanitation street sweepers to track the trucks' progress, a suggestion that the Sanitation Department initially rejected, Rodriguez's office said.
But the Sanitation Department's recent proposal to add GPS tracking systems to snow plows could be a precedent for street sweepers, Rodriguez's staff said.
"It was a major breakthrough. Previously the bill was stopped in its tracks because Sanitation said it was logistically impossible," Rodriguez's chief of staff Angel Audiffred said.
Sanitation spokesman Matthew Lisani said he could not comment on pending legislation.
Not everyone in Upper Manhattan supports the bill.
Several residents have voiced concerns about Rodriguez’s efforts on a pro-car initiative, saying there are other issues with public transportation that they feel are more important and affect more constituents.
One resident with the Twitter handle @ergface said he'd rather Rodriguez focus his attention on subway train delays rather than private vehicles.
"Sitting on overcrowded grimy A train I can't believe councilman @ydanis frm #WaHi is concerned abt ppl parking aftr streetsweepers roll thru," @ergface, a Washington Heights resident, wrote.
But on Wednesday night, volunteers who filled Rodriguez’s office to gather support over the phone said they were receiving a lot of support from area residents.
"We are calling senior centers, PTA coordinators, everyone on our list," Audiffred said. "There are people, especially up in this area, who are fed up and don’t like that they are getting tickets."
Constituents reached were asked to sign Rodriguez’s online petition and join the Councilman’s office in rallying in support of the bill at a planned event on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 18, at Noon.
The Councilman also plans to tour the neighborhood on Saturday to gather signatures himself.
"We are confident we can make some progress on this," Audiffred said.
