From time to time I’ll drive through Harlem and notice cars double parked rather extensively. I imagine there’s some sort of organizing principle involved, plus there must be some sort of tacit approval by the local traffic cops. Anyone know how it works?
In New York, each side of the street will be cleaned once or several times a week. During that time period, you’re not allowed to park on that side of the street. But if you’re in a residential neighborhood and aren’t going to be driving elsewhere during that time, where are you going to put your car? So you double park on the other side of the street during the street-cleaning period, then move your car back right afterwards. This isn’t technically legal, but I’ve seen news reports of people being ticketed for it, but such tickets are so rare that they’re newsworthy.
At other times, at least in Northern Manhattan (Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood), you can get away with leaving your car double-parked for a few minutes, sometimes even twenty or more (it depends on the neighborhood, and you get to know the unwritten rules) before you’ll get ticketed. Again, this isn’t legal, but there’s the understanding that if you’re not going to be there long - you’re just dropping something off, or picking someone up, or something similar - it’s tough to find a parking space, and cops will usually look the other way as long as you don’t abuse the privilege.
What I’m talking about looks more long term than moving the car for street cleaning, or for 20 minutes or a drop-off. It’s like a whole block of cars double parked at night, or during a Sunday when people are at church or some other function. It just looks more organized because otherwise there’d be horns blasting from people trying to get their cars out. If there’s an “understanding” with the cops then that’s a hell of an understanding. I’ve been ticketed in front of my building while in the middle of packing my car - rear hatch up, suitcases and bags in the back, etc…
The unwritten rule used to be that you can double park (during street cleaning) if (1) it’s a one-way street with alternate side parking rules on both sides; and (2) there is no school, hospital, fire station, or police station on the street.
This unwritten rule used to be so commonly in play that it was very common for entire blocks to be completely double parked. (If you went to move your car too late, there might be no double parking spot for you!)
This was especially so back when street cleaning lasted for 3 hours. Traffic enforcement would basically never issue a summons unless somebody complained. Everyone knew that if you were on the “good” side of the street, you would be blocked in if there was street cleaning that day.
Now that street cleaning is only 90 minutes, this sort of double parking has become less common, but it still happens in some neighborhoods as far as I can tell. So I would guess it’s the same unwritten rule in effect.
Double parking in common on some blocks, in some neighborhoods for different reasons. In some places, it’s common to double park during street cleaning hours, and in others it’s common during church services or other regularly scheduled functions. There’s not really an understanding with the police - people can and do get tickets for this sort of double parking and police officers often ignore double parkers in other areas. In my experience, the blocks where this is common don’t get a lot of attention from the police or traffic agents in general. There’s a residential block a few blocks from me where something similar occurs- there is no parking at all on one side of the street. People attending church services on the next block park there on Sunday mornings. Part of the reason the cars aren’t ticketed is because any police cars going down that block are going to be on their way to something more important, and the traffic agents concentrate on the commercial street a couple of blocks away. In twenty years, the only times traffic agents have been on my block is when someone calls to complain - which is not necessarily good, as people feel free the block the fire hydrants overnight.
The reason for the lack of horn-honking is the unwritten rules, which probably different for different areas. For example, on my mother’s very short, dead-end street, double parkers park outside the house they are going into. In other areas, the double parkers leave a contact number in the windshield.