Sports in town means more traffic

Sunday, June 12 – Saturday, June 18

ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING RULES ARE IN EFFECT ALL WEEK

Mets, Yanks; take your pick! Both first-place teams are playing home games at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The Yanks host the second place Rays while the Mets square off against the Brewers in a battle teams leading the National League East and Central.

Let’s hope the New York Rangers have final hockey Game 7 vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday at 8 p.m. As this column was published the Game 6 results were not in yet.

If sports aren’t your thing one of the greatest New York traditions takes place on Fifth Ave. on Tuesday, 6-9 p.m. The Museum Mile Festival will see extra activity along Fifth from 105th St. down to 72nd St.

The March for Food Justice is Tuesday at 10 a.m. Participants will walk from Brooklyn Borough Hall over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall.

The Bloomberg Square Mile Relay will affect lower Manhattan on Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Anticipate impacts around South St. Seaport in the area bounded by Fulton St., Old Slip, Water St. and the FDR.

WNBA teams the New York Liberty take on the Washington Mystics on Thursday at 7 p.m.

Justin Bieber will play Madison Square Garden on Monday and Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

The westbound lanes of Westchester Ave. will be shut Monday through Friday between Waters Place & Ericson Place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Hang a left on Hutchinson River Parkway East, right onto E. Tremont Ave., then right at Little League Place to rejoin Westchester Ave.

MAILBAG

Dear Gridlock Sam,

Why is street parking still free in NYC?

Charles

Dear Charles,

Ah, Charles, if we can only turn back the clock 70 years or so. It wasn’t until 1954 that the city officially allowed overnight parking but by the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, as car ownership boomed, the police ignored it. My father’s ‘47 Dodge was parked overnight on Tapscott St in Brownsville at all hours. After Alternate Side Parking was introduced in the ‘50s, cops began ignoring double-parking in some neighborhoods on street-cleaning days. Now the authorities are allowing drivers with faux paper plates, out-of-state plates and even no plates to park on our streets.

It’s time for the city to clamp down on phony paper plates, phony placards and phony out-of-state registration! Many cities charge residents a fee to park overnight. I just don’t see that in the cards with the current administration.

Gridlock Sam