At 06:17 PM 5/18/2006, Mitchell Nussbaum wrote:
On the blog, there's a comment from "a lawyer" who went to the trouble of looking up "The Rules of the City of New York." He found that the section on parking excluded "devices moved by human power" from the definition of "vehicle." The lawyer says it's not clear if this definition excludes bikes from parking or just from parking RESTRICTIONS. Probably, the only way to resolve this question is to get a ticket and work your way through the labyrinthine New York court system.
of course. it makes perfect sense that the powers that be would define bicycles as vehicles (and bike paths as highways) when it's convenient (like when they want to ticket bicyclists for something), and don't define bikes as vehicles (or paths as highways) when it's not convenient (like when they want anything but cars parked at a meter, or they want to charge a toll for the use of a transportation corridor (like the Cap City Trail) in a state (like Wisconsin) that doesn't otherwise have toll roads).
btw, Scott Rose pointed out (offlist) the fallacies in my argument ("ONLY to be used for the storage of vehicles", not "used for the storage of vehicles and whatever else fits there"). but I still think it's a great street theater. and, ultimately, what's the lesser crime: "parking" lawn chairs in a curbside parking space, or, say, driving 50mph down a 25mph commercial street like Willy St? In my book, if the cops don't seem to care about the latter (or don't have the resources to enforce it), then using their limited resources to enforce the former looks a lot like harrassment.
But the parking squatters didn't get a ticket, so their action remained at the level of street theater. As theater, it seems to have been successful. The blog's comments on the story are fascinating; Naparstek's blog is usually rather sedate, but this story brought out a lot of defensiveness and vitriol from people who identify with their cars. Chuck Strawser wrote: > Note that the blog says"New York City regulations say that metered, > curbside parking spaces are only to be used for the storage of vehicles. > This kid made sure the rules were being followed." > (in reference to the kid's TOY auto). > But bicycles are defined as legal vehicles in all 50 states (last I > checked), so this would be perfectly legal (anywhere), and no matter who > interpreted the ordinance...as long as they had at least one bicycle in > the > space. > chuck > > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
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