Submitted by Stop the Commuter Tax=Congestion Pricing, Aug 17, 2007 23:52

If you don't know it already - the City has lost $250-million to illegal parking placard abuse by government sector commuters using parking placards illegally.. That's right - $250-million dollars. Do you think that money could have been used to fix mass transit or at least keep mass transit fares low? This is money lost on Bloomberg's watch from parking meter revenue [Schaller report 2006] in the past 5-6 years. Illegal parking abuse, and getting rid of illegal parking placard abuse, was on the table for years, way before any congestion pricing scheme. How can anyone think of congestion pricing when you have 150,000 parking placards in the government sector violating existing No Permit Zone laws thousands of times every working day? The Mayor has to come clean, fess up - deal with it, eliminate it. One of the best parts - elimination of illegal placard abuse would cost the City nothing - just enforce already existing No Permit Zone laws.

Iillegal placard parking costs NYC $46-million a year in lost revenue, it encourages the law to be broken thousands of times a day, it encourages congestion and pollution, and it costs neighborhoods dearly in terms of lost businesses and quality of life.

The congestion pricing scheme is just that - a scheme - totally without merit, unless illegal parking placard abuse is eliminated first.

Lifelong NYC downtowner.

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