Authorized Vehicles Only: Police, parking, and pedestrian access in New York City

Abstract

Sidewalks and crosswalks do not benefit pedestrians if they are blocked by automobiles. In New York City, local media have documented that cars outside of law-enforcement offices routinely park on sidewalks and in crosswalks. This study systematically and longitudinally pursues this topic by tracking the geographic extent of this obstructive parking via in-person observation of the streets surrounding all 77 New York Police Department (NYPD) station houses, across all five boroughs. Combined with review of historical street imagery, this approach reveals widespread and longstanding parking on sidewalks, and to a lesser extent, in crosswalks. Of 77 NYPD station houses, 70 (91%) exhibited parking of at least one of these kinds, with sidewalk parking often extending along the entire block (and not simply in front of station houses), on adjacent blocks, and on both sides of the street. This renders many sidewalks impassable – forcing pedestrians into traffic – and in many cases directly abuts residences and businesses, curtailing access to such destinations. Longitudinally, such obstructive parking was present across 82% of 703 street-imagery data points, indicating this has largely become the default (and not occasional) use of adjacent sidewalks. In-person observation also demonstrated other ways this parking has had negative effects surrounding NYPD station houses, including double parking, obstruction of bus and bike lanes, and blocking of fire hydrants. These findings broaden the study of pedestrian accessibility and safety beyond the quality and design of sidewalks and intersections, to include chronic automotive obstruction, and indicate that parking behavior surrounding public-sector offices, if left unchecked, significantly degrades walkability.