PARKING METER PRICES GOING UP ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY
April 4, 2003
Effective Monday, April 7, 2003, parking meter rates will increase from $1 to $2 for one hour, from $3 to $5 for two hours, and from $6 to $9 for three hour parking.
The new rules are in effect Monday through Friday from 7 AM to 6 PM and should you fail to display the receipt you will be subject to a Violation Code #38 - Failure To Display A Parking Meter Receipt.
The high-tech, Internet enabled meters have replaced thousands of old-fashioned "twist and crank" meters and are sold to the City by Schlumberger - a NYSE company. Each meter automatically relays each payment to the Parking Violations Bureau (PVB) electronically.
While this information is readily available by computer, parkingticket.com President Glen Bolofsky asserts the City is not making the information available to motorists nor to City Judges who must evaluate whether or not tickets issued for a "failure to display a receipt" violation have actually been paid for.
Six (6) new parking violation codes have also been added to the growing list of scheduled fines for Municipal Meters. See the attached list.
According to parkingticket.com, more than $1,000,000.00 worth of parking tickets for the "failure to display a receipt" violation have been issued by the City. "The City has embarked on an entirely new way of ripping off the public just because of some flimsy receipt. The very idea of getting slammed with a parking ticket for failing to 'display a receipt' seems like getting hit below the belt", contends the parkingticket.com honcho.
According to parkingticket.com, the database of "paid Muni-meter transactions" while readily available to PVB is not made available to vehicle operators or even to the City's Parking Violations Bureau Judges. "Judges don't even have the ability to view the City database to fairly determine if a meter was paid for. So how can a PVB Judge properly determine if the meter time was paid for - if the City does not even give them access to this information?"
Municipal Meters dispense flimsy thermal paper receipts which are often lost by vehicle operators and can fade out or become yellowed within just two or three days of dashboard sun. In the adjudication process the PVB requires vehicle operators to produce the "receipts" as proof of their payment of the meters, even though the PVB database could quickly determine if it that time period was paid for. The database could be made available to both the Judges and the public but the PVB has not yet provided access to these vital records.
"In my opinion, it's about time for the PVB to either produce these vital records or suspend the issuance of these tickets", says parkingticket.com President Glen Bolofsky.
Listing of New York City Municipal Parking Meter Violation Codes, as per the New York City website http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/parknyc7.html#31, April 3rd, 2003
| Violation Code | Description |
|---|---|
| 31 | Standing on a non-commercial vehicle in a commercial metered zone |
| 37 | Parking in excess of the allotted time |
| 38 | Failure to Display a Receipt or Tag in the windshield |
| 42 | Parking in a Muni Metered Space in a commercial metered Zone in which that Muni Meter is operational and indicates that the time has expired |
| 43 | Parking in a metered space in a commercial metered zone in which the meter is operational and indicates that the time has expired (Note the difference is that 42 is a Muni-meter and 43 is a meter) |
| 44 | Parking at a meter in a commercially metered zone for longer than the maximum time allowed |
| 38 | Failing to Display a Receipt or tag in the windshield |
