According to the Texas Transportation Institute, traffic congestion continues to worsen in American cities, creating a $78 billion annual drain on the U.S. economy. One method cities have used to mitigate congestion is instituting parking restrictions to improve traffic flow; for example, banning curbside parking during rush hour. However, these mechanisms only work if drivers obey the parking rules, result that most local governments achieve through assessment and enforcement of fines and penalties. Federal employees in the District of Columbia (DC) and New York City (NYC) incurred thousands of dollars in tickets assessed on illegally-parked U.S. Government vehicles. Federal regulations and agency policies clearly state that parking fines are the responsibility of employees. In 2007, 477 parking tickets valued at $63,150 issued to U.S. Government-tagged vehicles in DC were never paid. Nearly one-half of the tickets were for violations of morning or evening rush-hour restrictions, violations that increase congestion by reducing available road capacity. One Federally-funded study found that temporary capacity reduction of one lane on a two-lane freeway can reduce capacity by as much as 68 percent. A blocked lane also jeopardizes safety by forcing traffic approaching the illegally parked vehicle to merge into the adjacent lane.
Lax Fleet Management Practices Enable Government Employees to Ignore Local Parking Laws and Evade Fines
2008
28 pages
Report
No indication
English
SLUB | 1989
SLUB | 1989
C.B.D. Parking rates and fines
Engineering Index Backfile | 1967
|The policies and practices of local authority parking management teams
British Library Online Contents | 1996
|