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Parking Meter Prices Going Up Like Everything Else
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 17, 2009
Modified Apr 17, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 17, 2009
Modified Apr 17, 2009
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Since February the DOT has been busy changing parking meters from 25 cents for 30 minutes to just 20 minutes for a quarter. It's the first such change on low-rate meters since 1995, and the Bloomberg administration expects it to yield an additional $16.8 million. All 17,842 meters in Queens have been changed, and the process is underway in The Bronx, to be followed by Brooklyn, Staten Island, and finally upper Manhattan in June. Of course, drivers and retailers are hopping mad about this, and the Post is savoring the populist fury. Queens florist Mathew Xenakis declares, "It's bad timing, it's a bad economy, and we're trying to survive." Brooklyn mechanic John Zarro opines, "Everybody is broke—the city should take away some meters to give people a break." And likely mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner sees a dark conspiracy at play, "In Queens, people woke up one morning and found that parking meters increased in the cover of night." But Ian Dutton of Manhattan's Community Board 2 posits that higher parking meter rates are good for business, because "the more cars we get to turn over, the more we get shoppers running quick errands into the stores."
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parking meter
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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