Is 666 Washington Ave U-Haul making parking for U hell?

notsayin

Over the past couple months, Washington Transmissions at 666 Washington Ave has greatly expanded their U-Haul franchise operations - which is great, except their business model includes storing 10 or more box trucks and vans on Washington, Bergen, Underhill and/or St Marks most nights.

I can only imagine losing that many on-street parking spaces in one square block has to be making parking difficult for residents - not to mention I'd imagine the odds of having your car bumped, scraped or otherwise molested by a half-dozen amateur truck drivers making after-hours drop-offs by attempting to parallel park a cargo van are remarkably high.

So here's the solution if you're a car owner on that block...it's actually illegal to:

a. Store a commercial vehicle on a NYC street for more than 3 hours, or

b. Park a commercial vehicle on a NYC street between 9 pm and 5 am.

It's a $65 ticket per offense - for the franchisee, no small change vs a $20/day U-Haul rental. A 77th Precinct car was ticketing the orange beauties on Underhill and Bergen last night.

So when you see a U-Hauler parked on your block at night or for more than 3 hours, call 311 or the 77th (anyone have the direct number) and complain about a commercial vehicle being stored on the street.

Guessing within a week or two the owner will find an off-street solution.

notsayin

Then again, this U-Haul franchisee may have found a clever loophole in the NYC DOT's rules about parking commercial vehicles (I've dug deeper, seeing that the two trucks ticketed last night are still parked in the same places - and the tickets have been removed). 

Per the NYC DOT website http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/parktruck.shtml 

For the purposes of parking, standing and stopping, a commercial vehicle is defined as a vehicle that:

• bears commercial plates, and
• is permanently altered by having all seats and seat fittings, except the front seats, removed to facilitate the transportation of property (for vehicles designed with a passenger cab and a cargo area separated by a partition, the seating capacity within the cab shall not be considered in determining whether the vehicle is properly altered), and
• [emphasis added] displays the registrant's name and address permanently affixed in characters at least three inches high on both sides of the vehicle, with such display being in a color contrasting with that of the vehicle and placed approximately midway vertically on doors or side panels.

So. U-Haul vehicles - while bearing "Apportioned" plates and clearly being in commercial use (not passenger vehicles)...DON'T have U-Haul's address stuck on both sides in day-glo three-inch letters.

Here's why they're all registered in Arizona (cheap registration fees and no safety inspection required): http://brokensecrets.com/2010/04/08/why-u-hauls-have-arizona-license-plates/

Not giving up just yet...just serving up all the info I have at the moment.

notsayin

New tickets on St Marks U-Hauls this morning. Apparently the 77th considers them commercial vehicles.

whynot_31

Or, devils that surround the hell that is 666.