Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park) has penned new legislation that would require the city to haul away cars abandoned without plates within one month of a do-gooder making a complaint, the local pol announced during a Community Board 18 meeting on Oct. 24.
Hundreds of derelict cars have lingered for months on his district’s streets over the years, vexing communities already strapped for parking spaces — so it’s about time the city follow its own rules and tow them away, said Maisel.
“There are a couple of hundred cars that have to be towed, and the city, for whatever reason, has chosen not to take this issue as a priority,” he said. “The legislation is putting the city on the spot to force them to do what they should be doing.”
Currently, once someone files a complaint about an abandoned vehicle without any plates, the Department of Sanitation is supposed to investigate within three days, tag it if it’s a complete wreck, and then remove it within another three days, according to a spokesman for New York’s Strongest. If it looks still in working order, then it’s up to the police department to haul it off, the spokesman said. And the police don’t have a time limit for towing away plateless cars.
The city has fallen short of its duties to address quality-of-life issues such as derelict cars dumped on the street, and it’s leaving locals fed up, said Maisel.
7 comments:
Police officers should not be the ones who have to tow these cars. It should be done by traffic agents, and traffic tow. By the time the officer has to respond, wait for the tow truck, and go back to the precinct and fill out paperwork it can take upwards of 3 hours.
When a precinct has sometimes 4 or 5 patrol cars out for the whole precinct, you can't take a sector car out of service for that long to tow just one car. There's too many higher priority things that need to be taken care of by the officers. Thats why unfortunately these calls are ignored many times.
This is definitely a problem across the city. I'm tired of paying for insurance and registration on my car, and some clown runs a free auto lot on the street and thats ok. It needs to be addressed.
There..you SEE...THEY ARE COMING FOR OUR JUNK CARS!!!!
Note: Sarcasm.
Rob In Manhattan
"Hundreds of derelict cars have lingered for months on his district’s streets over the years"
.... oh, ok, um, now he is finally doing something about it. nice, eh?
REALLY, within one month, how about within 48 fucking hours. And instead of wasting money on idiot studies, statue commission or wasted positions such as the Public Advocate and staff AND all the Borough Presidents and their staff, create a damn unit within Sanitation that focuses on just this. Certainly plenty of work for this crap.
As usual this city does not even try.
I've reported abandoned cars to 311 many times in the Maspeth area and have found that in a few days Sanitation puts a sticker on the car and in a few days later it's gone.
Just set them on fire then call FDNY. LOL!
There needs to be more attention brought to this quality of life/ community issue. It's unacceptable that a tax paying resident of the neighborhood can't find a parking spot due to 10 cars both without plates or just 1 plate(without insurance and inspection stickers) sitting around for 5-9 months on 1 street. Add to that the fact that no one is regulating all the illegal single family house conversions so that now a street, both sides, that may have housed 20 or 25 families are now housing 50 or 60 families (four families in one home in some cases), making it near impossible to ever find a spot remotely close to home. It's unreal. I've lived in my Maspeth home since 1990 and the difference is horribly disheartening and frustrating. All I can do is continue to call 311, but as it's been mentioned in a few other posts, the precinct just says they sent someone out who "saw no infraction". There have been days I have called and literally not left my window so I could meet with these officers, however, on not one day have I ever seen them come out yet that automated message will always appear saying the same thing, "No appearance of infraction". Maybe the day someone actually goes out to look, they'll notice the infraction as I and others with working eyes have.
Post a Comment