EDITORIAL: On parking legislation and Coney Island

Commonsense measures

The City Council has voted to make life easier for New Yorkdrivers.

On January 18, members overwhelmingly passed a package of threebills designed to lift some of the burden off of motorists who havebeen under assault from a revenue-hungry city.

Once the trio of legislation becomes law – and they should, becausethere is enough support for all of them to override a mayoral veto- traffic agents will be required to cancel tickets writtenelectronically within five minutes of a motorist’s getting amunimeter receipt, the city will be unable to assess late fees ontickets that are still being contested, and motorists who violatealternate side parking regulations will no longer have to scrapenearly impossible-to-remove stickers from their car windows.

Issuing tickets for violating city regulations is not unreasonable.However, ticketing drivers who have stepped from their just-parkedcars to the munimeter to pay for parking is beyond unfair.

Similarly, adding late fees to the bottom line as motorists gothrough proper channels to challenge their tickets is ridiculous;it is much fairer to start the clock on late fees 30 days after afinal determination has been made, as will occur under thelegislation that was just passed.

Finally, it seems to us that receiving a ticket for violatingalternate side of the street parking regulations is sufficientpunishment. We agree with local Councilmember David Greenfield, theprime sponsor of the bill to outlaw the nuisance stickers, thatmaking the stickers a thing of the past, will make life a littlebit saner for New Yorkers.

Coney Island kudos

The redevelopment of Coney Island is continuing apace, and wecouldn’t be more thrilled.

Two new amusement parks have opened in the beachfront resort in thelast couple of years, with a third on tap for this summer, and thereturn of the area’s historic B & B Carousell in summer,2013.

The ongoing development has changed the face of the venerableplayground, and brought back the crowds in increasingly greaternumbers. That’s great news for Coney Island, and for the borough asa whole, as the neighborhood’s economic engine is stoked.

We see increasingly brighter days ahead for Coney Island, and, likeour fellow Brooklynites, are ready to celebrate.