Photo Courtesy of NYPD
Members of the 102nd Precinct Traffic Safety Unit recently conducted an overnight heavy tow operation in which two abandoned school buses were removed from Woodhaven Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue.
By Michael V. Cusenza
The City has recently ramped up efforts to address the long-standing issue of commercial rigs conspicuously parked on Queens streets.
“Idling trucks eat up parking spaces for hours on end, fill our air with harmful exhaust, and inflict asthma or other respiratory illnesses on residents,” noted City Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria), chairman of the Council Committee on the Environment.
Last week, members of the 102nd Precinct Traffic Safety Unit conducted an overnight heavy tow operation in which two abandoned school buses were removed from Woodhaven Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue; and several other commercial vehicles were “booted” within the command.
In June, City Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) introduced legislation aimed at cracking down on illegally parked commercial trucks. The Commercial Truck Abuse Act features two measures. Introduction 1011 would reduce time during which a tractor-trailer combination, tractor, truck trailer or semi-trailer can be parked to 90 minutes from 3 hours; Intro. 1010 would increase the penalty for such a violation to $400 from $250, and to $800 from $500 for subsequent violations within a six-month period.
Miller called illegally parked 18-wheel trucks a “nagging quality-of-life issue” that has been especially troublesome for his Southeast Queens constituents.
“The ‘Commercial Truck Abuse Act’ will serve to make the cost of doing business more than the companies that own these vehicles can afford to bear, which they have been all too willing to do at the expense of our community,” Miller added, “but we’re determined to change that attitude.”
