New York City drivers have a reputation for being mean and a little crazy. Maybe it’s because there’s no way to score a decent parking spot without being a bit aggressive and doing mental gymnastics to decrypt ambiguous signs. Once you’re parked, you’re never really sure, and the anxiety doesn’t go away until returning to your car. Every so often anxiety turns to rage as you come to find a pretty orange envelope on your windshield and it’s not an invitation to the masquerade ball.
For all the pain they cause New Yorkers, parking tickets generate a large amount of revenue for city infrastructure. Over 10 million ticketswere issued during the last fiscal year, more than enough for every man, woman, and child in the city, with a few leftover for their pets. Using ticket data provided by the city, we’ve parsed out the worst neighborhoods to park in New York City.
At the top of the list is the Upper East Side, where just shy of 600,000 tickets were issued in the 2015 fiscal year, representing almost 6% of total tickets, at a rate of about 2.8 tickets per capita. Midtown North and Times Square follow closely with over 400,000 tickets each and over 4% of all tickets issued.
Their per capita ticket numbers tell a scarier story: in Midtown North 7.9 tickets are issued per person, while in Times Square that number balloons to 19.8 tickets per resident. This may be due to the lower density of residential areas here, but seeing as how less than 45% of NYC households have a car, one can infer that there’s certainly a lot of repeat victims in these areas.
Watch out for these Hot-Spots!
These addresses were easy targets and amassed more tickets than a small city. Shopping centers and hospitals took top spots; showing that meter maids don’t care whether you’re getting a new kidney or new shoes.
- 2655 Richmond Ave, Staten Island (4,668 tickets) – Staten Island Mall
- 365 Bridge St, Brooklyn (3,374 tickets) – MetroTech Center, BellTell Lofts
- 1330 1st Ave, Manhattan (2,866 tickets) – New York Presbyterian Hospital Employee Housing
- 170 Joralemon St, Brooklyn (2,335 tickets) – The Packer Collegiate Institute
- 448 W 16th St, Manhattan (2,239 tickets) – Manhattan Fruit Exchange, Chelsea Market
- 99 Warren St, Manhattan (2,049 tickets) – 101-99 Warren Condo Complex and Shopping Center
- 355 Bard Ave, Staten Island (2,022 tickets) – Richmond University Medical Center
- 95-25 Queens Blvd, Rego Park (1,901 tickets) – North Shore LIJ Medical Group
- 82-23 Broadway, Queens (1,788 tickets) – Verizon Wire Center
- 204 Livingston St, Brooklyn (1,759 tickets) – Bridge Dry Cleaners
The Handicapped-Oblivious
Can you guess which area racked up the most offenses for parking in handicapped-designated spots? Staten Island’s West Shore amassed nearly 12% (1,355) of the city’s violations for illegally parking in a spot reserved for handicapped despite having just 0.24% (23,987) of the city’s total tickets. We know some tickets are bad luck, but that’s just bad judgement.
No escape?
It’s nearly impossible to hide from the Department of Finance, the agency that manages the highly lucrative, $500 million plus in parking ticket revenue. So don’t take it out on the officers as the money doesn’t go in their pockets. Luckily there are a few neighborhoods that aren’t hit as hard. The Lower East Side had just 1% of total tickets (103,498) despite having a high population density. Greenpoint, Brooklyn also ranked as a low-ticketed neighborhood, with just over 1.1% of the year’s tickets (109,927).
Parking Garages
The solution for many New Yorkers is to pay a monthly fee to park in a garage. This is out of reach for many, as costs can range from $300 to well over $600, especially if you have an SUV. At the lower end that’s the cost of three or four tickets, and the time it saves can provide an opportunity to do more lucrative things than circling the block in your Maserati looking for parking. On the flip side, a ticket every once in awhile is certainly cheaper than paying for a garage, plus you get that warm feeling knowing your money is going to important stuff.
For an interactive map of the 2015 Parking Data, click here.
Need somewhere new to park? Check out our listings in Lower East Side and Greenpoint.
Resources Used:
- “Parking Violations Issued – Fiscal Year 2015,” NYCOpenData, https://data.cityofnewyork.us/dataset/Parking-Violations-Issued-Fiscal-Year-2015/c284-tqph.
- “B25044 – Tenure by Vehicles Available,” American Community Survey 2014, factfinder.census.gov.
- Icon Parking, http://www.iconparkingsystems.com/monthly-parking/
This article was also featured on DNA Info.
