City drivers are about to get a rare parking break.
The City Council is set to fast-track new legislation that would allow drivers to use unexpired muni-meter time at multiple spots citywide without the worry of being ticketed, The Post has learned.
The new bill — which has the key support of both Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and Mayor Bloomberg — would let drivers purchase time from a muni-meter on a street anywhere in the city, keep the receipt and then continue to use any remaining amount on another street. Still, the transferred parking time must be for spaces with meter rates that are the same as or less than the rates of the location in which the parking time was purchased.
The bill — the subject of a council hearing April 23 — comes in response to a Post report in September that found city agencies had wildly different opinions over whether the practice is legal because the current rules are so vague.
For example, the Department of Transportation claims drivers can already transfer the remaining “time” over to other parking spaces.
But NYPD traffic agents routinely slap summons on drivers who try this tactic — and city Finance Department judges usually side with the agents.
“This bill will make life a little bit easier and more fair for drivers who are right to feel that they should be able to keep the muni-meter time they have already paid for,” said Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), who is co-sponsoring the legislation and chairs the council’s Transportation Committee.
Quinn said the bill ensures, “plain and simple — you buy the time, you get to use it.”
The legislation has widespread support of the council, according to sources.
Assemblyman William Colton (D-Brooklyn) introduced similar legislation on the state level in February but saw it stall politically because the council wanted to take the lead on the issue.
Colton said he’s “pleased the council is finally responding to concerns many of my constituents have been raising for some time” and hopes that the council “will end all the confusion” by also ensuring muni-meter receipts list any rule changes.
Muni-meter fees usually run $1 an hour in much of the city except Manhattan, where fees are $3 below 96th Street. Parts of Park Slope, Brooklyn, charge $1.50.