Katy Golvala

@kt_golvala

And now, a non-Valentine’s Day story to keep your feet on the ground — and your car in the right place. Because Bushwick is getting lots of parking tickets.

In 2017, a total of 85,000 parking tickets were issued in the neighborhood, representing a 30-percent spike from 2016. Almost 10,000 were issued in October alone, making it the highest month on record for parking tickets over two and a half years.  

Has Bushwick really gotten that much worse at parking or have our traffic cops just become a little too overzealous in the past year? It’s hard to say because the police department hadn’t talked to us by the time of this publication.

One thing is clear, though. Traffic cops are getting most of their work done in the morning. Almost 25,000 tickets —  around 30 percent of all the tickets issued in 2017 — were handed out between 8-10 a.m. That’s particularly insane when you consider that only 22,000 tickets were issued in the 12 hours between noon and midnight. Isn’t that when most people are parked?

Moving cars during street cleaning is one rule that Bushwick struggles with. This was the most common type of violation by far, accounting for almost 40 percent of all traffic tickets.

There are also some spots in the neighborhood where you’ve got a particularly high chance of getting a ticket. Not surprisingly, cars parked on some of the busiest roads in the neighborhood got the most tickets. In 2017, cops issued around 5,000 citations on Knickerbocker Avenue, 3,400 on Broadway, and 3,000 Bushwick Avenue.

The single address with the most parking tickets in the 83rd precinct (which covers most of Bushwick) was actually in Ridgewood at 1001 Irving Ave. It’s a huge building that’s got around 70 recording and rehearsal studios in total. It also neighbors a filming studio where the crime/cop show “Bull” is filmed.

What kinds of tickets have you got in Bushwick? Tell us in the comments and help us continue our data-driven series about complaints and infrastructure issues in the area!

Cover image courtesy of Filip Filkovic Philatz on Unsplash