NYC Driving | Park It! Guides

License Plate Readers Know Where You Are

March 20, 2013

Big Brother in NYC is about to get bigger. According to The Huffington Post, on Tuesday March 19, 2013, NYC Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced that NYC will be installing license plate reader cameras “in every lane of traffic on all of the bridges and tunnels that serve as entrances and exits to Manhattan.”

That means that no matter which NYC bridge or tunnel you use to access Manhattan, your vehicle will be recorded. The NYC Police Department is legally allowed to keep the data for five years.

NYC Police Department is already doing this, if you didn’t know. It has a way to record all vehicles crossing the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the Holland Tunnel. Kelly said that the license plate readers will be ordered for other NYC bridges, which could include the Williamsburg Bridge and Queensboro Bridge.

All this intelligence data will become part of the $30-40 million comprehensive dashboard produced by Microsoft called the Domain Awareness System, which includes 3,000 cameras and 2,600 radiation detectors.

Filed under: NYC Bridges & Tunnels,Transportation News — Tags: NYC Bridge, NYC police, NYC Tunnel — mtohn @ 9:03 am

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NYC Subway & Bridge Fare Increases, March 2013

March 5, 2013

Yep, new fares for NYC buses, NYC subways, Metro-North Railroad, LIRR Railroad, and NYC bridges and tunnels.

Effective March 3, 2013:

NYC Subway & NYC Bus

Base Single Ride Fare: Increase from $2.25 to $2.50 → $.25 increase
Single Ticket Fare: Increase from $2.50 to $2.75 → $.25 increase (Sold at vending machines only. Must be used within 2 hours, no transfers included)
Monthly MetroCard/30-Day Unlimited: Increase from $104 to $112 → 7.7% or $8 increase
7-Day Unlimited: $30.00
7-Day Express Bus Plus: $55.00
Express Bus: $6.00
Fee to Purchase New MetroCard $1, so save those used or expired NYC MetroCards and exchange them for a new one! Fee applies to each new MetroCard purchased at station booth, vending machine or commuter rail station.
Pay Per Ride Bonus: An additional 5% is added to your MetroCard with the purchase or addition of $5 or more.

Effective March 1, 2013, fares and tolls are also increased for these NYC bridges and tunnels: Read more…

Filed under: Buses,Driving & Traffic News,E-Z Pass,MTA MetroCard,NYC Driving,Subways,Transportation News — Tags: Henry Hudson Bridge, Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Rail, MetroCard, MTA, NYC Bridge, NYC Bus, NYC Subway, NYC Tunnel, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Triboro RFK Bridge, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Whitestone Bridge — mtohn @ 10:32 am

What Causes NYC Potholes?

February 27, 2013

Pothole

If you have been driving in NYC in the last few months, you probably have swerved to avoid a pothole. You know what a pothole is, but here’s the office NYC definition:

A hole in the street with a circular or ovular shape and a definable bottom.
The bottom may be the concrete roadway base and may be partially filled with mud, dirt, or loose gravel.
Condition does not look man-made and usually is not sitting in an area of collapse.

These large holes — some as big as 2 feet wide — slow down NYC traffic, can be hard to avoid, destroy NYC road conditions, ruin your car and never seem to get fixed fast enough.

How do these enormous holes that can be as deep as 10 inches, just show up suddenly? There are a few different theories:

Theory 1 says that roads need to drain water. Read more…

Filed under: Driving & Traffic News,Getting Around NYC,NYC Driving — Tags: NYC DOT, NYC Driving, NYC road conditions, Potholes — mtohn @ 9:58 am

Strange NYC Traffic Laws

February 22, 2013

NYC traffic ticket As if NYC parking and driving isn’t hard enough, you can get a NYC parking or traffic ticket for some unbelievable violations. Here are a few that we sourced from 888RedLight.

NYC Traffic Violations You Might Want to Know

1. It is illegal to bypass traffic by cutting through a parking lot or other establishment. This move is illegal under VTL 1225 and is called “avoiding an intersection”.

2. Similarly, driving on the sidewalk is illegal unless one is actually trying to access lands adjacent to the roadway. VTL 1225-A.

3. It is illegal to pass a broken NYC traffic signal without stopping. Under Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1142, you must stop, yield to any other vehicle that has already entered the intersection from any other direction or one that presents an immediate hazard and then you can proceed.

4. Outside of NYC, in Sag Harbor, NY it is illegal to take your clothes off in a car.

So if you want to avoid a NYC traffic ticket, remember these obscure NYC traffic laws. And if you do get a NYC traffic ticket, call our friends at 888RedLight.

Filed under: Driving & Traffic News,NYC Driving,Parking & Traffic Tickets — Tags: NYC Parking, NYC Parking Ticket, nyc parking violation — mtohn @ 3:24 pm

Making NYC Traffic Better

February 21, 2013

Every day, 70,000 vehicles travel in and out of NYC’s Manhattan. Add pedestrians and bicyclists to all these regular cars, delivery trucks, and emergency vehicles, and you get quite a mess of NYC traffic.

So the NYC Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) got together with Transcore and a few other companies to create an Active Traffic Management System to improve NYC traffic. Now dubbed ‘Midtown in Motion’, this is a broad network of 100 microwave sensors, 32 traffic video cameras and E-ZPass readers initially installed at 23 intersections in NYC midtown. These devices measure traffic speeds covering a 110-block area from 2nd – 6th Aves & 42nd – 57th Sts in an effort to get NYC traffic moving faster by adjusting Midtown traffic signal patterns, unplugging bottlenecks and smoothing the flow of traffic.

Phase I resulted in an overall 10% improvement in travel times on Read more…

Filed under: Congestion / Traffic Pricing,Taxis,Transportation News — Tags: Midtown in Motion, NYC Bus, NYC DOT, NYC Taxi, NYC Traffic, Transcore — mtohn @ 8:55 am

Is NYC Traffic Stressful?

January 6, 2013

Let’s say you’re driving NYC traffic. NYC taxis are speeding past you, trucks are double-parking, limos are cutting in to your lane, you see brake lights ahead, and you’re not sure if you can make a right turn at the next intersection. Stressful, yes? But do you want to know your stress level? And would that help?

According to Edmunds, car company Ford is starting to install in-vehicle sensors that will measure a driver’s stress level and use that data to personalise ‘driver-assist’ technologies.

In the 2013 Ford Fusion, there are 74 biometric sensors that can ”can monitor the perimeter around the car and see into places that are not readily visible from the driver’s seat,” Ford said.

Both radar and cameras will gather data including traffic congestion and incoming phone calls. Ideally, this data will be used to both predict driver behaviour and manage the vehicle’s controls for results such as better energy management.

We’d need to know a lot more about this technology before signing up for it. After all, I drive in NYC traffic nearly every day and my stress level is definitely going to be different than someone’s who is driving in NYC traffic for the first time.

Filed under: Driving & Traffic News,NYC Driving,Transportation News — Tags: Ford Motor Company, NYC Traffic — mtohn @ 6:08 pm

NYS Bus & Subway Fare Increases, Mar 2013

December 25, 2012

We’ve posted about this before and now it’s been confirmed.

Fares for NYC buses and NYC subways will increase effective March 3, 2013.

NYC Subway & NYC Bus

Base Single Ride Fare: Increase from $2.25 to $2.50 → $.25 increase
Single Ticket Fare: Increase from $2.50 to $2.75 → $.25 increase (Sold at vending machines only. Must be used within 2 hours, no transfers included)
Monthly MetroCard/30-Day Unlimited: Increase from $104 to $112 → 7.7% or $8 increase
7-Day Unlimited: $30.00
7-Day Express Bus Plus: $55.00
Express Bus: $6.00
Fee to Purchase New MetroCard $1, so save those used or expired NYC MetroCards and exchange them for a new one! Fee applies to each new MetroCard purchased at station booth, vending machine or commuter rail station.
Pay Per Ride Bonus: An additional 5% is added to your MetroCard with the purchase or addition of $5 or more.

Effective March 1, 2013, fares and tolls are also increased for these NYC bridges and tunnels:

Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)

Increase of approximately 9%

Metro-North Rail

Increase of approximately 9%

Whitestone Bridge, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Triboro RFK Bridge

One-Way Cash Fare: Increase from $6.50 to $7.50 → $1.00 or 15% increase
One-Way E-ZPass Fare: Increase from $4.80 to $5.33 → $.53 or 11% increase

Henry Hudson Bridge

One-Way Cash Fare: Increase from $4.00 to $5.00 → $1.00 or 25% increase
One-Way E-ZPass Fare: Increase from $2.20 to $2.44 → $.24 or 11% increase

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

One-Way Cash Fare: New fare is $15.00
One-Way E-ZPass Fare: New fare is 10.66

These increases should generate an additional $450 million annually.

Filed under: Buses,Driving & Traffic News,MTA MetroCard,NYC Bridges & Tunnels,Subways — mtohn @ 5:23 pm

Proposed NYC Parking Rules

The New York City Council Transportation Committee met in early December 2012 to review a series of bills proposed to make NYC parking either easier or more clear. The three bills described below, however, were not supported by the NYC Department of Transportation (NYC DOT).

Int. 762 would make it easier for vehicles to stand near a school or day care center for longer than it takes to drop off or pick up a passenger.
Int. 527 would require the DOT to post notice of permanent street sign changes that affect parking.
Int. 824 would make it expressly legal for homeowners to park in front of their own driveways. Read more…

Filed under: Driving & Traffic News,NYC Driving,NYC Parking,NYC Street Parking,Parking & Driving Advice — Tags: No Standing, NYC DOT, NYC Parking — mtohn @ 5:06 pm

Henry Hudson EZ Pass Discounts

December 7, 2012

The NYC MTA earned nearly $940 million in 2011 from tolls on its seven bridges and two tunnels. Some of that revenue was used to pay the toll-takers in the toll booths.

If you’re crossing the Henry Hudson Bridge to get from the Bronx to Manhattan, be prepared for ‘Cashless Tolling’. The toll rates are:

$2.20 with EZ Pass NY
$4.00 with EZ Pass NJ
$4.00 without any EZ Pass

If you don’t have an EZ Pass NY or EZ Pass NJ, drive through the toll. The cameras on the toll barrier will record license plates and the MTA will mail you a bill for the unpaid tolls. The bill will go to the address on the vehicle’s registration. If you don’t pay after the MTA sends you a second bill, you will get a $50 penalty and the bill could be turned over to a collections agency. You can look up your bill here by Violation, EZPass Tag Number, or your License Plate.

This new process went into effect November 2012. Here’s how Cashless Tolling, or Tolls By Mail, works:

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