I Hate NY #2 - Parking

It is impossible to find parking in New York. In the time it takes you to read this sentence someone has already taken the first open parking spot you saw, and a guy in an acura has pulled up behind him to ask if he is leaving and how soon. The second open spot you saw has a fire hydrant in front of it that is obscured by giant bags of trash which are being picked through by a homeless man who is looking to add to the worlds largest collection of aluminum cans being carried around at any one time by one person.

But yet, some people persist in attempting to park their car in New York. Very often they will drive around for up to an hour in an 8 block radius from their destination thinking that eventually a spot will open up. Yes, eventually if you drive around in New York enough, a parking spot may open up. You may also be struck by lightning while fishing. The odds are about the same.

Parking signs in New York are not your friend. They are often mislabeled, confusing, or defaced so as to be illegible. It doesn't matter if you can't read them, or that they are written in Greek. You are still still responsible for whatever the sign says. Because of this, New Yorkers automatically mistrust all open parking spots and whenever they have to be somewhere for less than an hour they just double park.

New Yorkers are constantly surprised when they are ticketed.

"HOLY F-N S--T! I just went inside for 2 minutes to pay a phone bill and I come out and they're towing my car!" is a typical story told by countless put upon New Yorkers to anyone within earshot who will listen to them.

Non residents are not advised to attempt parking here for any reason unless you are prepared to willingly give up your sanity.

Parked cars are considered a danger to motorists on the road and so they often respond the only way they know how - by scraping or running into parked vehicles and then quickly driving off.

I recently witnessed a taxi pull up in front of another taxi to drop off a passenger. The passenger opened the door to get out and struck the other taxis tail light. The taxi driver who's cab was hit jumped out of the car and started screaming in Iranian or whatever his native language was about who's going to pay for this and give me your number and that sort of thing. The offending taxi driver (who hadn't even got out of the car) responded calmly by saying he was going to write his info down and give it to him, and then he pulled the passenger back inside and drove off into the night leaving the other guy to helplessly give chase and scream things at him.

In New York, signs are posted on every block about street sweeping rules which tell you (for instance) that you cannot park on this side of the street on Tuesday or Thursday between 10am and 12pm in order for giant disgusting street sweeping trucks come by to clean the streets. The people who live on these streets apparently never leave and so are able to move their cars when the street sweepers come and then move back at about 11:40am. Then they sit in their cars for about 10 minutes to see if any cops come by then go back inside to look out for any meddling kids who are trying to stop whatever it is that they were trying to get away with.

Unless you are prepared to do nothing but babysit your car all day on the street, the only real solution to parking is to pay hundreds of dollars to a parking garage every month, and then laugh at everyone because of your big bankroll.

I parked my car for a year in New York, before crashing it in New Jersey at 6 in the morning on the way to a music video shoot for Aerosmith, and I've been a lot happier ever since.