The New York Police Department routinely fails to ticket illegally parked cars that have city-issued parking permits, especially near precinct houses, and residents’ complaints about permit abuse rarely result in summonses, according to a report issued on Wednesday.
The report, by the city’s Department of Investigation, confirmed what many New Yorkers know firsthand: that tens of thousands of people with city-issued permits, many of them police officers, can typically park anywhere they like with little fear of consequences.
In a city where street parking is at a premium and a space in a garage for even a short period can be costly, the failure to crack down on the misuse of city-issued permits, the report said, is “a form of corruption that erodes the public trust in municipal government.”
“Parking permit abuse obstructs streets and sidewalks, creating potentially dangerous conditions for pedestrians and motorists alike,” Jocelyn E. Strauber, the Department of Investigation commissioner, said in a statement. “And a lack of enforcement of parking laws with respect to permit-holders sends a message of special treatment.”
The report included about 11 recommendations for tackling the problem, including developing a uniform permit across agencies; conducting annual audits of active permits to determine whether they should be revoked; and scrapping “self-enforcement zones” near precincts.
The Police Department, the report said, “has no written policies or procedures regarding the self-enforcement zones, and the rate of enforcement of parking laws within those zones was significantly lower than outside of those zones.”
Traffic enforcement agents, who work for the department, “are not permitted to enforce parking rules” in the zones, the report added. One agent told investigators that the fear of being disciplined kept agents from issuing tickets in areas just outside the zones but near precincts.
Complaints that were called into the city’s 311 line regarding illegal parking or permit misuse are handled by uniformed officers, the report said. The Department of Investigation analyzed 311 data in both categories spanning more than three years and ending in August 2022.
Nearly a quarter of 311 complaints in those categories were closed within 20 minutes or less, investigators found, and the police closed complaints about permit misuse at a higher rate than calls about illegal parking. Ninety-one percent of 311 complaints about permit misuse did not result in a summons being issued.
As part of the inquiry, the report said, the Department of Investigation conducted so-called integrity tests of the Police Department. Those showed that the police “took no enforcement action in any of the instances of parking permit misuse reported” by department investigators and “did not respond to the complaints at all” in half of those instances.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams declined to comment on the report’s findings and referred questions to the Police Department.
The department said in a statement that it “appreciates the Department of Investigation’s work in assessing our policies and practices relating to parking permits,” was “reviewing the report” and would “carefully consider the recommendations.”
The permits, which are also known as placards, are meant to allow municipal workers and, in some cases, employees of other government agencies to park in what are typically no-parking and no-standing areas while conducting official business. The permits do not allow parking in bike or bus lanes or at fire hydrants.
Three agencies — the Police Department, the Transportation Department and the Department of Education — collectively issued 95,000 permits in 2022, the Department of Investigation report said.
The report notes that “permit abuse is a subject of longstanding concern” and that “past administrations have sought to address these problems, generally without success.” Abuses include parking illegally while displaying a valid permit; the use of what the report calls permit “stand-ins,” like business cards and work vests; and the growing use of phony permits.
In 2008, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut the number of permits issued 20 percent. His successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, proposed several initiatives to reduce permit abuse. Many, the report said, “did not materialize or have since been abandoned.”
The report also noted that the Department of Education’s permit process has few safeguards, and that the department has issued more than 30,000 parking permits to employees despite there being only 10,000 school-zone parking spaces in the city.
Nathaniel Styer, a Department of Education spokesman, said the agency would “review the report’s recommendations and work with our partner agencies to ensure that parking placards are used appropriately and that recipients of placards meet the necessary criteria.”
