Following a whirlwind tour of busy shopping streets and places of worship across Bensonhurst and Gravesend, Assemblyman William Colton (D,WF-Brooklyn) fired off a letter to Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Iris Weinshall demanding the immediate correction of erroneous parking signs instructing motorists to still pay parking meters on Sundays, despite a city law banning such action.

The Assemblyman took a tour around his district witnessing firsthand numerous deceptive parking signs that call for motorists to pay meters on Sundays. “It must be unconscionable for anyone in government to know that hardworking taxpaying families are being misled to fill up the city’s coffers on Sundays,” said Colton in his letter to Weinshall. “…It appears that the Department of Transportation has either forgotten or not acted fast enough in correcting parking meter signs that still deceptively instruct motorists to pay the meter on Sundays”, Colton went on to say.

The Brooklyn lawmaker is fuming over the slow effort, or lack thereof, on the part of the DOT in not amending parking signs to correspond to a law passed by the New York City Council banning the use of parking meters on Sundays. In October of 2005, the City Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of banning the use of parking meters on Sundays. The law came into effect the following month in November.

Colton notes that one of the main reasons the City Council passed such a law was the issue of Sunday worshippers having to run back and forth in and out of their respective religious services to feed parking meters. “I personally traveled to locations along Avenue U and 86th Street, both high volume shopping areas that are also near churches, and saw numerous incorrect and deceptive parking meter signs,” charged the legislator.

The Assemblyman points out that many New Yorkers may not even be aware of the City Council’s actions and continue to mistakenly feed the parking meters on Sundays. Colton believes that the pattern of deceptive signs in Bensonhurst and Gravesend represents a troubling trend across the entire city.

Colton is demanding swift action on the part of the DOT in correcting the signs and also offered to take DOT Commissioner Weinshall on a tour around his district showing her the flawed parking signs.