NYC Sanitation Department Adding Ticket Cameras On Street Sweepers

By FrumNews.com 

A new bill was introduced to the New York State Assembly that would add cameras to the city’s street sweepers to further crackdown on alternate-side parking violators.

The bill was introduced by Crown Heights Assemblyman Brian Cunningham and co-sponsored by Midwood Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, Williamsburg Assemblywoman Maritza Davila, and Lower East Side Assemblywoman Grace Lee. 

The proposed bill would allow the city to install cameras that could snap license plates from vehicles parked along the curb during long Alternate Side Parking cleaning hours when the lane is supposed to be clear on all DSNY’s street sweeping routes.

The city would also be required to install new street signs that say parking regulations are photo-enforced.

“Dirty streets are totally unacceptable. This is where we can score a home run and really make an impact,” Assemblyman Cunningham told Streetblog. It’s one domino that fixes a lot of things. Just your simple act of moving your car would give us a huge boost.”

According to Cunningham, his office receives hundreds of dirty street complaints from his constituents. 

State Senator Robert Jackson of Washington Heights in Manhattan introduced a similar bill in the State Senate, with minor differences. Cunningham hopes of combining the bills and passing them in the near future. 

In 2023, Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that New York’s Street Sweeper should have cameras affixed and automatically ticket cars that are in their way as they seek to sweep the city’s streets. 

The commissioner said at the time that the sweepers couldn’t do their jobs as well as they should have because the cars blocked their path. 

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While such a bill is good, the bill ignores the City’s failure to properly enforce street parking of abandoned vehicles with no plates or fraudulent paper plates in front of crime-ridden buildings in the city. Many such buildings are in the districts of the legislators proposing this law. Instead of wasting resources on these bills, the City and State legislators should use their resources to have DSNY Sanitation tow away those abandoned vehicles, instead of going after ordinary tax-paying citizens who don’t have anywhere to park their cars because all their legal parking spots are taken by abandoned vehicles.

Another bill targeting tax-paying citizens, from Williamsburg Councilman Lincoln Restler, is pushing a new law for DSNY to tow vehicles after just three tickets are issued for not moving by alternate side parking.

This new rule will not affect the thousands of abandoned vehicles and cars with counterfeit paper plates currently occupying our city’s street parking spaces, causing dirty and unpleasant streets.