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Q&A
Council Member Williams questions DOT on truck parking and daylighting
1:35:24
ยท
4 min
Council Member Nantasha M. Williams inquires about the relationship between truck parking and daylighting, particularly in Industrial Business Zones (IBZs). DOT officials Joshua Benson and Eric Beaton respond, explaining their maintenance procedures for signage and how they balance daylighting with truck parking needs.
- DOT discusses their approach to sign maintenance, including periodic inspections and responses to 311 complaints.
- The department explains how they're working to fine-tune daylighting in conjunction with overnight truck parking in industrial zones.
- DOT outlines their multi-pronged approach to sign inspections, including dedicated crews, responses to complaints, and opportunistic checks during other maintenance work.
Nantasha M. Williams
1:35:24
Thanks.
1:35:25
Just a quick question on how truck, the lack of truck parking also affects this other important topic that we're talking about today, is daylighting.
1:35:35
So in certain areas, IBZs, I know like the Gateway JFK, IBZ bid, there is daylighting but there has been complaints and I'm sure this is consistent across the city because no one community is particularly unique, but people are actually taking down the sign so I know we want more but what are you actually doing to preserve what currently exists because people especially that live close to IBZs, especially in areas like South East Queens that happen to drive one or more cars, majority of the people also want parking, daylighting takes away parking but a lot of times it's the trucks that are parking there, not even like residents.
1:36:16
So if you could kind of explain how are you preserving what you actually have whether it's daylighting or other types of like tools and treatments.
Joshua Benson
1:36:26
This is a it's a great question and very It gets complicated to make all of these tools work together when you get to a specific location.
1:36:39
Just in terms of general maintenance, we keep records of all the sign installations, the dates.
1:36:46
We inspect periodically.
1:36:48
We restore the signs.
1:36:49
We take requests from three eleven, other city agencies to restore signs if they're missing.
1:36:57
That's kind of the baseline of any sign maintenance.
1:37:01
But with respect to the daylighting and the truck parking, I think that's as we get further into this, we'd like to tackle that issue.
1:37:13
As we're putting out the overnight truck parking in more and more industrial zones, can we fine tune and tailor the daylighting to complement it?
1:37:23
Something that I think has been very helpful with these pilots of the overnight truck parking too is that, as Deputy Commissioner Beaton mentioned, NYPD has been collaborating, doing a lot of complementary enforcement.
1:37:36
Part of the enforcement they're doing is in the overnight truck parking location itself to make sure people who don't belong there are not parked there so that it will be available for the trucks when they get there.
1:37:50
So just increasing the presence of enforcement, increasing the activity has been beneficial, but certainly gives you the ability as you're doing these to tailor the daylighting to those locations where the trucks are meant to be.
Nantasha M. Williams
1:38:08
How often do you inspect for signage?
1:38:15
Do you have like a regular cadence of inspections or do you only check for signs after a 03:11 complaint is made?
1:38:23
And then how long does it take you to replace the sign once a complaint has been made through three eleven or another mechanism?
Eric Beaton
1:38:33
Sure, so there's a couple mechanisms.
1:38:35
Obviously there is three eleven and specific complaints.
1:38:38
We have a couple of crews that are dedicated to where inspectors go around the city and just look for things that are wrong, which can include missing signs, can also include poles that are down or things that are problematic out there.
1:38:52
We also tell all of our crews when they're going to any location to make sure that they're addressing anything that they see at that location.
1:38:59
So we don't want a crew that goes out and changes just one sign and doesn't notice that the other one's missing, there's an inspection before everything that we install to make sure that everything in that area is correct so that when we send a crew out, they're very efficient and can fix whatever is in that area.
1:39:17
So we sort of have those three different chains.
1:39:19
It's the general inspections around the city that, you know, they don't get to every block of the city every year.
1:39:25
We take the three one ones and other community requests, and then we also just have our regular crews that make sure that they are looking at all of these as they go out to do the work.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:39:36
Thank you.
1:39:44
Council Member Wong.