Bay Ridge City Councilman Vincent Gentile plans to introduce a bill in which the curb surrounding bus stop zones and fire hydrants would be painted red to protect drivers who get fined after wrongly eyeballing that they parked far enough away from these zones to get tickets.
Currently, drivers face a $115 ticket for parking within 15 feet on either side of a hydrant, or between a bus stop sign and the next parking sign on the block. Painting curbs to delineate no-parking zones is already utilized in several cities around the country.
“It becomes a guessing game for the motorist that results in a ‘gotcha’ type of ticket,” Gentile said. “Naturally nobody wants to block a fire hydrant but without any markings, unless you’ve got a ruler handy, you have no choice but to estimate how far you are from the hydrant. You guess, and many times you still get a summons!”
Gentile said the common sense bill would have a major effect of keeping money in the pockets of hard-working New Yorkers who have suffered from unfair ticketing for far too long.
While law spells out the zone around hydrants and bus stops, these provisions are not generally known to the public nor are they always easily discerned when the zone is not painted on the curb. This makes parking in New York into an absurd guessing game and leads to law-abiding citizens becoming victims of “gotcha” ticketing by the City, he noted.
With red paint as a marker, “there would be no question as to whether you’re in a prohibited zone or you’re not,” Gentile concluded.
