Zap placard abuse & make cash: Yang

Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang is backing a proposal to reward New Yorkers who report abuse of city-issued parking placards, among other steps aimed at ending placard abuse for good — a longstanding cause of transportation reform advocates.

Yang (inset) on Wednesday said he supports a stalled City Council bill that would give New Yorkers a 25% cut of fines when they report illegal parking in bike lanes, bus lanes and other nooks, even if the driver has a city-issued placard.

He also would complete the city’s process of replacing paper versions of the placards with digital ones, which also stalled during the pandemic.

“For years, our city government has sat by while the placard system has run amok. There has been a lot of talk and little action,” Yang said in a statement. “That will change under my administration. Drivers who use placards — real or fake — shouldn’t feel as if they have license to park illegally, on sidewalks, or in bike lanes.”

Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) introduced the legislation on rewarding New Yorkers for reporting parking violations last year. The bill envisions an online portal to send the snitching to the Transportation Department, but it has failed to gain traction in the Council. The legislation would also increase such fines, to $175 per infraction.

With about 125,000 parking placards in use, the city had issued about 1,700 digital ones as of January. The effort to phase out paper placards — which are vulnerable to being replicated and otherwise misused — has foundered during the pandemic.

Yang, who rose to prominence on the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign trail and has been leading polls on the city’s mayoral race, also wants to restore funding for parking placard enforcement, which was slashed along with wide cuts to agency spending last year.

Overall, Yang wants to reduce the number of placards in circulation — starting with his own administration — if he’s elected. His campaign didn’t put a number on the cut he has in mind.

“We live in a crowded city, and we have to work together to create safe, efficient streets for everyone,” Yang stated.