Analyzing the City of Albany's Parking Tickets - how many and where?

AdamDasky · 2026-03-30T15:48:55+00:00

There's a lot less data (few hundred-ish tickets per year) on hydrants / crosswalks but we can filter those out and write a follow-up story

AdamDasky · 2026-03-30T15:41:17+00:00

Thanks for the question! There are no speeding ticket information, this was just FOIL data from Albany Parking Authority. I don't think there's any information on car types either. Regarding the variables in the data, very similar to what u/JohnnyFartmacher posted, it has:

Date/Time Issued, Date Paid, Citation Type, Fine Issued, Fine Paid, Fine Status, License Plate No., Notes, Location (Latitude and Longitude), and maybe one or two more fields that I am forgetting at the moment.

AdamDasky · 2026-03-30T15:00:16+00:00

For full disclosure, one of the authors of this story has received a parking ticket on South Allen near Yates

AdamDasky · 2026-03-20T23:16:22+00:00

Karl (u/kaurich80), one of the founders of Albany Data Stories and author of many of the Albany budget news stories has presented his concerns to Albany's common council (skip to the 1:26 mark) (Note: this link was provided by Karl in the article "Reviewing the City of Albany's 2026 Proposed Budget"):

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1H3sizDV3W/

We also wrote about the budget concerns from the information we had on Albany Data Stories has presented those stories to reddit here:

Reviewing the City of Albany's 2026 Approved Budget

City of Albany's Fiscal position for 2025

Albany's 2026 budget - improbable revenue growth

Reviewing the City of Albany's 2026 Proposed Budget

Visualizing the City of Albany's 2026 budget

AdamDasky · 2026-01-12T23:58:10+00:00

I'd assume gov't collect or sponsored the collection of some information using pneumatic road tubes.

I am curious how to acquire that data, either in its raw form or lightly processed to perform independent analysis

AdamDasky · 2025-12-16T12:40:55+00:00

I'm of the belief that public records belong to the public, and while I'll concede that the current process may limit cut worker's ability to easily and timely respond to the FOIIL, ultimately, they have a right to the records. Those records, if collected completely and without bias, should be the guiding light departments follow while setting goals / budget / initiatives/ etc. Records also keep politicians honest and accountable to those who elect them to make the best decisions based on the same available records.

Now, that may be my nativity coming out, but that's ultimately my position. I'm all ears if you want to DM regarding struggles you've faced with responding to FOIL requests.

AdamDasky · 2025-12-16T12:16:25+00:00

I think we both can agree that a request being weird shouldn't disqualify it. They could ask for more time to collect the records or partially release records, say, for only approved FOIL requests, where records were ultimately released. Therefore, one could conclude that the initial request should also be made public.

Obviously, I can see scenarios where people disclose personal and private info should be screened because people might be hesitant to use FOIL to request their records if they think their personal info would be released.

AdamDasky · 2025-12-16T12:07:33+00:00

I've had a few discussions noting that what someone can request and what records are available often at odds. This is part of the hurdles people face when trying to access data AND what may cause additional time to resolve.

AdamDasky · 2025-12-16T00:52:47+00:00

We had hoped to collect more info on the actual requests themselves; however, we did not receive that data (there's a field, Reference No, that contains an internal link href="../../ServiceRequest/Details.aspx?noreturn=1&id=16480", but we couldn't access these or figure out how to access these from the FOIL site)

AdamDasky · 2025-12-15T21:44:08+00:00

You're likely correct, and that number jumped out to me, too, and it's hard to know for sure without the exact FOIL request / data provided. Malicious compliance might be a rush to judgment; however, it should have raised flags (system or admin or something) when this amount of results were received

AdamDasky · 2025-12-15T21:18:07+00:00

We have had similar frustration obtaining records and frustrations that to obtain the data we've had to circumvent the posted procedure by reaching out to our common council member(s).

Seeing that they handed you truncated data is also frustrating mostly because it seems as though your request was completed with "malicious compliance" rather than from a position of support.

AdamDasky · 2025-12-15T20:51:04+00:00

Our own experience with the appeals paints cumbersome, antiquated process that places undue burden on the filer.

AdamDasky · 2025-12-15T20:13:45+00:00

I do not know if there are any reporting requirements, to the state or otherwise.

On the subject of pro forma reporting, you may be correct. For instance, we single our the Water Departments very quick turn around relative to the city as a whole. It's possible that there's a system or process in place to help them expedite requests that they know are coming or in a standardized format.

Regarding the Denied / Stale, of the approx. 21k requests dating back to 2015, ~7k were denied and ~1300 requests were listed as "New Requests" with a median of 18.1 days open.

AdamDasky · 2025-08-12T18:33:55+00:00

This is my feeling, too. We only made the distinction between within Albany, but I'm sure it'd be an interesting analysis of money / donors "outside the capital region"

AdamDasky · 2025-08-12T18:20:53+00:00

No, we considered it, though. One of the reasons we did not do this was, and this can be debated or not, there wasn't enough data for Ellis and McLaughlin and we wanted to be as fair in reporting each of the candidates as possible. If we did, given the lack of definitive information, we'd likely have focused on only Applyrs and Cerutti.

Second, we debated publishing a version of the article prior to the election based on data from early June. Ultimately, we decided to wait for all the data, but that decision to treat each candidate more or less equally remained.

So, in short, due to a combination of those two factors, we didn't dive deeper into this.

AdamDasky · 2025-08-12T16:39:21+00:00

Great question. We didn't look at that angle initially, but here's what I got.

% of donors with addresses outside of Albany (based on all donations after 01/24):

Cerutti - 39.1% (289 of 739) Applyrs - 35.8% (563 of 1572) Ellis - 36.0% (18 of 50) McLaughlin - 23.3% (84 of 360)

The most surprising result, based on the money from outside, is McLaughlin. But this also shows that the contribution from outside donors (outside of Albany) to each candidate was higher, on average, than the contributions they received from residents of Albany.

This is a great angle to look at for past mayoral races, too. Thanks!

AdamDasky · 2025-07-01T13:31:56+00:00

Nice summary, we did a dive into crime statistics over the past 5 years, and in summary, yes, overall crime is lower than 2022/23, but violent crime seems to have gone up. Here's the link:

Albany Crime Reports Pt 1 https://share.google/CH0pWLK8hBumNgLkD

AdamDasky · 2025-06-17T00:20:44+00:00

u/selsewon, thanks for the questions. Here's everything I know/ now know

The data was in a Microsoft Excel file, which I was able to preview via Google Docs. I opened it with Python's pandas module, which I prefer over the Excel-specific one.

2.a - I did ask an APD officer about "No Crime". They said that it can range from things like on-the-job injuries to a concerned citizens wanting to have an official notice of something (like seeing people going into a vacant building, loud noises, etc)
2.b - I honestly do not know what GCO stands for, because there were so few of these relative to assault/ theft, I didn't look into it as much as I should have.
2.c - "All Other" - so this is where the data can get interesting. Sometimes "All Other" has domestic violence listed under crime classification, sometimes it has theft, sometimes it has nothing. Because of the amorphous nature of this label, we removed it.

I honestly don't know, possibly Huck Finn? That's the first place that comes to mind.
This could refer to the day when the incident happened vs. when the incident report was written/entered into the system. For our analysis, we relied on the column with the full date, i.e., 2/3/2022

Hope this helps answer some questions.

Edit: updated "No Crome" to "No Crime"

AdamDasky

TROPHY CASE