January 7, 2008
Teachers Union Wants Its Free Parking!
Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that he would reduce the number of parking permits for civil servants by 20% has annoyed yet another group. Joining police officers, fire fighters, and other emergency workers are teachers.
Teachers union president Randi Weingarten sent Mayor Bloomberg a letter to call the permit limits"deeply disturbing." Weingarten complains that teachers actually have too few permits. United Federation of Teachers vice-president Michael Mulgrew told the Sun that teachers end up making "informal deals" to rent driveway space from residents and even gave the personal anecdote of one school of 130 teachers offering just three spaces.
However, Streetsblog takes exception to Weingarten's letter, finding problems with her claims. Here's one:
2. [From Weingarten's letter:] "Teachers do not clog areas such as lower Manhattan" with their personal vehicles.Streetsblog (which also points to a study suggesting free parking makes people more willing to drive, even when there are mass transit options nearby) says that it's not about eliminating teachers' permits, it's about creating "more centralized and rational system for distributing parking permits based on real need" - with enforcement.[From Streetsblog:] Not only are teachers' cars part of the Lower Manhattan traffic jam, in a city where 43 percent of elementary school kids are unhealthily obese, teachers and education officials have been known to clog school playgrounds with their personal vehicles. In one notorious case, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum intervened to stop city employees from using the Tompkins Square Middle School's playground as a parking lot in 2004.
Photograph of car using a Department of Education permit to illegally park from Uncivil Servants
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I can't wait till the freelancers union gets some perks ;)
"...Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum intervened to stop city employees from using the Tompkins Square Middle School's playground as a parking lot in 2004."
Not only was the playground used by the (small) Middle School, it was also used throughout the day (and still is) by two larger elementary schools (one that I went too).
When officials were allowed to use the area as a parking lot, the yard turned into, well, a parking lot, full of antifreeze fluid and other nasty stuff.
When I was in high school "back in the day" our principal sometimes parked her car on a sort of terrace overlooking our playground. When the playground was crowded we played ultimate frisbee and other stuff on that terrace, so the parked car was annoying.
One day a bunch of us got together and lifted her car. I think we moved it to a nearby sidewalk.
There are actually too many sarcastic and snarky comments here to choose from. I don't even know what to say.
Teachers get free parking? TEACHERS GET FREE PARKING!?!?!
Could they start adding parking lots or garages to civic buildings like schools and police stations? I mean, every other f#&%ing city in the US can do that.