One local pol is looking to right a whole lot of wrong parking tickets.
Councilmember Vincent Gentile, who represents Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and Bath Beach, penned a letter earlier this month to Chief Thomas Chan of the city’s Traffic Operations District requesting that drivers who were wrongly ticketed for parking in front of T-intersection or mid-block pedestrian ramps be reimbursed as quickly as they were issued tickets for the legal parking spots.
“The DOT adopted a rule change in 2009 after I had pushed for legislation to allow parking in front of mid-block pedestrian ramps at T- intersections due to safety hazards for pedestrians. Apparently, NYPD traffic agents did not get the memo,” Gentile said. “Whether this has been a ‘gotcha’ ticketing scenario, an extreme oversight, or a giant mistake, all that matters to me at this point is putting cash back in our driver’s wallets.”
The oversight, he said, came to light after another news publication cited NYC Open Data research that uncovered the error, which, since 2013, has cost drivers nearly six million dollars in summonses.
The Department of Finance has since informed the local politician that they will review wrongfully issued pedestrian ramp tickets going back more than one year. Additionally, the Department of Transportation has confirmed that it will pave over the mid-block pedestrian ramps at T-intersections citywide to deter further confusion and erroneous tickets from being issued.
“I will be closely monitoring the situation and will not relinquish my push for a citywide refund to those affected,” said Gentile.
Drivers who have received this type of ticket and have yet to dispute it are encouraged to do so via this form: www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/dispute-a-ticket.page.