Overnight parking for tractor-trailer trucks could be created under a bill to be put before the City Council on Thursday — and advocates hope the plan will get big rigs off residential streets.
“This is one of those issues where everyone thinks they’re the only neighborhood that’s dealing with it,” Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), sponsor of the bill, told the Daily News.
If passed, the legislation will require a minimum of three designated locations for off-street truck parking to be built by the start of 2026 at locations “feasible and appropriate to offer such parking.” Under the plan, the mayor would decide what agency would obtain and manage the parking.
An uptick in residential deliveries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a surge of trucks — many of which end up parked overnight on residential streets in violation of the law.
Ticketing blitzes — like one in Queens in 2022 that resulted in 597 summonses and saw 89 trucks booted and another 55 towed away — are unsustainable, said Brannan.
“The NYPD just doesn’t have the resources to tow 18-wheelers every night,” the councilman said.
Evan Simko-Bednarski
A sign reminds truckers not to drive down a residential street in Springfield Gardens, Queens.
Tickets cost a truck operator $265 for an initial violation, and $515 per ticket for each additional violation within a six-month period.
“It’s really not fair to anybody,” Brannan said of the status quo.
“It’s unfair to New Yorkers to have their residential streets look like truck stops,” he said. “It’s also not fair to truckers — they’re parking where they can.”
The Trucking Association of New York, an industry group, has long called for off-street tractor trailer parking.
Federal law requires truckers to take 10 hours off the road for every 14 hours of driving — a requirement TANY spokesman Zach Miller said is difficult given the small number of parking lots and truck stops in the city.
“We’re really encouraged by this bill,” he said.
Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens), chair of the council’s Transportation and Infrastructure committee, said the bill was one half of an approach that would include increased enforcement of the laws regarding large trucks in the city.
“Enforcement remains an essential component of the city’s strategy,” she said in a statement. “NYPD and DOT must enforce the law, including the prohibition on [53-foot trailers] on city streets.”
“This bill will make more parking available to truckers, and the city will have a responsibility to ensure they use it,” she said.
