They trashed their chance.
Prospect Heights drivers proved they are too lazy, greedy and dirty for the privilege of dropping their alternate-side parking rules two just two days a week, according to city officials and records.
The leafy Brooklyn nabe miserably failed the eight-week pilot program — which took ASP parking days from four to two — with a little more than half its drivers finding the willpower to move their cars for the 1.5-hour inconvenience, officials revealed Thursday.
Drivers racked up an incredible 913 ASP summonses during the pilot, which ran from Aug. 3 through Sept. 25, according to the city’s Sanitation Department.
At an average of 457 tickets per month, Prospect Heights drivers were actually receiving more summonses than they were when alternate-side rules were in effect for double the amount of time.
Just 62% of drivers actually moved their cars for the reduced alternate-side parking days — dropping from 73% the month before the testing program went into effect.
The result was visibly dirtier streets, the DSNY said.
City Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who pushed for the pilot program, theorizes that drivers fell asleep at the wheel — with many deciding the cost of a $65 ticket was worth keeping their coveted spot in the notoriously hard-to-park neighborhood.
“For people who count the tickets as just the cost of owning a car in New York City, maybe they’d rather just get one ticket than two,” Hudson told Gothamist.
“ There’s definitely a lot of disappointment. I’m disappointed. I was hoping to have it become a permanent change. But we’ve got to do better.”
Regular ASP rules have resumed in the neighborhood — meaning drivers are back to enduring four-day street sweeping.
It also means Prospect Heights drivers have lost their right to whine about the annoying multi-week car dance that comes with the routine.
Hudson said her office has for years fielded requests from residents who question whether the twice-weekly sweepings per side of the road were necessary — especially because it leads to the nabe being littered with more double parking than trash.
The pilot program testing the theory reduced ASP to two days for a roughly 10-by-two-block area from Atlantic Avenue to Eastern Parkway, between Vanderbilt Avenue and Grand Avenue.
It was meant to be a “carrot-and-stick” type of approach that promised less enforcement if there was more compliance — but drivers proved too lazy.
“We estimate that citywide, about 500,000 cars every week fail to move for the street sweeper. This has a real impact on the look and feel of our streets — no one likes seeing litter along the curbline, and the street sweeper can pick up 1,500 lbs of litter on an average shift — but even more than that, litter on the street ends up in the catchbasins and sewers and can make flooding worse,” a DSNY spokesperson said.
“In other words, this is not an academic problem … we don’t ask people to move their cars just because we feel like it, but because it’s the best way to get the street clean and failing to do so has real-world consequences.”
The program started off rough — with parking enforcers erroneously slapping several drivers with tickets after apparently failing to get the message that the rules were suspended in its first week.
Hudson’s office promised neighbors that the botched tickets would be waived — and they ultimately did not contribute to the staggering number that determined the pilot was a failure.
