Despite New Rules, New Yorkers Still "Pay to Pray"

Oh, New York Post, you certainly do know how to make a Gothamist smile on a Sunday morning afternoon don't you? The secret? Just revisit one of our pet issues, in this case the city's snail-pace in fazing out the controversial Sunday 'pay to pray" parking signs.

The City Council voted 41-3 to stop collecting money from parking meters on Sundays way back in July of last year. That vote was vetoed by Bloomie as being "fiscally irresponsible," but the Council didn't listen and just overruled his veto. As such we've theoretically had free parking on Sundays since November.

But you wouldn't be able to tell it from the signs around the city. According to the Post, of the 15,062 Sunday parking signs in the city only 5,137 of them have been modified. That's all of the signs in The Bronx and Staten Island but only 57 in Brooklyn (of 3, 520) and 1,675 in Manhattan (of 4,711). A DoT spokesman says that it should have all of the signs fixed by the end of the year but in the meantime if "people would rather put 25 cents in the meter just in case than get a $100 fine, that's just the way it is."

Of course if you really want to take matters into your own hands, you could just buy your own custom sign from the DoT.

Photo detail from krypto's flickr stream.