Quaglione says DOT should mark parking spaces

Drivers hog more than one spot, candidate charges

September 20, 2013 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Quaglione in car.jpg

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Parking spaces on commercial streets with muni-meters should be clearly delineated to educate drivers as to how much room they have to park, according to a City Council candidate in Bay Ridge, who is pushing the Department of Transportation to take action to prevent motorists from hogging more than one spot.

Republican-Conservative John Quaglione, who is running against popular incumbent Democrat Vincent Gentile in the 43rd Council District (Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst), said officials at the Dept. of Transportation (DOT) have agreed to take a look at an idea he suggested to them to mark parking spaces on muni-meter blocks. The proposal is currently under review by the Parking Operations and Highway Design units.

DOT has removed nearly all the parking meter posts on commercial avenues in the district, including Third and Fifth Avenues, following the installation of muni-meters. The last of the meter posts were removed this summer. Theoretically, muni-meters add parking spaces to a street because motorists are no longer restricted to parking inside an individual metered space.

But Quaglione, who advocated for the removal of the parking meter poles to eliminate confusion for drivers, said that since they were taken away, residents have told him that without the individual meters, motorists often take up more than one parking space.

It makes making parking in Southwest Brooklyn even more difficult, according to Quaglione.

“Muni-meters were designed to create additional parking spaces and ease the burden along our commercial avenues. However, we have each experienced times when you pull up on a spot and realize that if only the person would have moved up or moved back, you would have been able to park your car,” Quaglione said.

“Efforts have been made to establish parking courtesy, but I believe the markings will go a long way in making a difference,” he said.

Anything that can be done to ease the parking situation in the council district should be considered, Quaglione said. “Parking spaces are a commodity in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. If we can take a common sense approach and mark our spaces, as they do in other cities, we can increase parking and give a boost to our local economy,” he said.