In its July 31 issue, The WIRE pictured a silver-gray Toyota stored in front of PS217, never ticketed by Public Safety. RIOC would say only that the car was parked there for "law enforcement" purposes. The WIRE later learned that, though rarely moved, the car is said to be used by an Assistant District Attorney required to go to crime scenes, and is therefore stored free on the street, even though paid Motorgate parking is equally accessible.

The WIRE has sent RIOC a Freedom of Information Law demand for a list of cars, maintained at Public Safety, of cars immunized from ticketing. RIOC has responded, "Due to the time necessary to review such records, you will be notified in approximately 30 days..."

Meanwhile, long-time resident Geof Kerr volunteered to repeat a parking study he did in June, 2003. His report, which indicates that only 11 out of 97 vehicles pay for parking at any given time, follows.

by Geof Kerr

The WIRE pictured an unticketed Toyota parked in front of PS217 in its July 31 issue. By my observation, the car had been parked there, without being moved, for four or five months. After the July 31 WIRE, the Toyota was moved to a spot opposite the firehouse. As it happens, that's where the car was parked, unticketed, over a year ago when I did a survey of Island parking.

By June of last year I had become seriously concerned and upset by the parking congestion on Roosevelt Island. It was near impossible, at almost any time of day or night, to find a place to stop and unload a car. I invested a day (Friday, June 20) in a parking survey that showed only 12 cars paying for parking - out of 119 on the street.

This year, I did the survey on Tuesday, August 17. Not much has changed.

Between 11:30 and 2:00, there were 97 vehicles parked on Main Street and River Road. Only 11 displayed valid short-term parking permits - the ones purchased by inserting quarters in one the machines at the curb. Eighty-six vehicles were parked for free.

. 12 of the vehicles parking freely in 2004 were similarly parked in 2003, including Toyota DA5-89S. Of those 12, 5 were parked on River Road and appear to be management related.

. A full 22 displayed a dashboard handicapped identification, but 3 of these were clearly fraudulent (license plate number blanked out, for example). Of the rest, several have been observed being used by able-bodied people

. 10 displayed handicapped ID hanging from rear-view mirrors, but those are valid only for specially designated parking places, such as those in supermarket parking lots. They are not valid for general street parking, but the cars were unticketed.

. 8 were commercial vehicles apparently going about their business.

. 7 were parked on Main Street north of River Road and were mostly observed to belong to RIOC and Manhattan Park employees. (Why pay the $71 it costs an employee to park in Motorgate if the street is available free?)

. 6 had various forms of apparently semi-official ID which seemed, on close inspection, to be of dubious validity. They included an undated ID for Corona Volunteer EMS.

. One car was ticketed, and it was being towed. (Last year there were no tickets.)

. In both 2004 and 2003, a survey of the north end of Motorgate indicated that it was less than 50% occupied, so the availability of parking space would not seem to be an issue.

Personally, I liked it in the old days, when the street was not continually clogged with traffic. You could stop and unload, but did not dare to even think about stopping on the east side of the street. It appears to me that we now seem to have an environment of patronage and favoritism in which anything goes and, while the original planning ideal of all Island-bound traffic terminating at the Motorgate plaza (see Historical Marker # 11, across the street from Motorgate) may not be practical, it would be nice to minimize the amount of on-Island traffic, and have the rules apply equally to all, rather than their applicability depending upon whom you know.

Perhaps, if the volume of traffic were reduced, we could save Main Street from the asphalt fate which its present state of neglect would suggest that it is destined. And the last thing we need is additional on-Island parking, as planned for the proposed development at Octagon, which will pour cars onto the Island, and leave Motorgate half empty.