New York City Workers Have Turned Central Park Into Their Own Parking Lot
Central Park in Manhattan is the closest thing to an oasis I have ever personally seen. Among the chaos of such a large city — a forest of steel, glass, concrete, and the constant smell of urine at most street corners — lays 843 acres of grass, trees, and lakes. The greenery in Central Park can even help absorb all those taxi cabs' emissions on a good Summer's day. Taking up roughly six percent of the island of Manhattan, one of the most dense and expensive real estate markets in the world, and it remains untouched.
But recently, NYC workers, police, and other public officials just simply could not resist this sprawling piece of unused land in their fair city. Some folks started to use Central Park as their own overflow parking lot. I am sure that is not what Freddy Olmsted had in mind when he designed the place. If you have ever been, you may already be heading to the comments to remind me that the NYPD has been parking cars in Central Park for as long as I can remember, and that would be accurate. But this isn't parking along Center Drive — we are talking about parking cars on the packed dirt walking path known as Bridle Path.
Why all of a sudden are folks parking where they shouldn't? Well outside of the perceived privileged: congestion pricing. The Bridle Path where this is rampant is less than 20 blocks from the start of the congestion pricing zone. Drive into the city above the pricing zones, park your car where it doesn't belong — Bob's your auntie. It's a rich irony considering the horror wealthy New Yorkers felt at the prospect of a 20-minute walk just a few months ago. Oh, we forgot to mention that this trail does not even allow bicycles...
Luckily the police and city council are aware of the issue. When confronted with the image of municipal vehicles clogging up a pedestrian trail, Council member Gail Brewer gave the New York Post a quote that belongs in the Hall of Fame of bureaucratic ineptitude: "It's a reflection, to me, of the city's lack of enforcement of the laws ... [there's] no consequences for bad behavior."
You don't say? While enforcement is "happening," the optics of city employees bypassing the very tolls and parking mandates they enforce on everyone else are, well, terrible. Now, the NYPD have been parking to the beat of their own drum for a while now — parking directly on sidewalks. You always knew you were near a police precinct not by the bustling action during a shift change, but when you came across cars parked on the damn sidewalks. It raises the age-old question: Who holds the people who hold you accountable, accountable?
If the city wants us to take their traffic reduction goals seriously, maybe they should start by towing their own employees out of the shrubbery of Central Park.
