By N. Clark Judd

Ask Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz when a street is not a street, and he’ll probably tell you: When it’s a forest.

But when is a street that’s actually a forest still, in fact, a street?

The NYPD says the answer lies on Forster Place, a narrow private lane off of Huxley Avenue, south of West 261st Street, that turns to trees and shrubbery before intersecting with Broadway. Last December, Riverdale resident Sheran Tavarez parked along Broadway in front of the lane where Forster would empty out to the main thoroughfare — that is, if it weren’t actually a gently sloping hill replete with woods and shrubbery.

But a traffic enforcement agent, perhaps not seeing the forest for the trees, gave her a $115 ticket for blocking the traffic lane.

“They’ve ticketed everybody that even gets close to that street,” said Ms. Tavarez, a television producer and director.

“It’s crazy,” she later added.

She appealed to Mr. Dinowitz, and since then, the state lawmaker has been waging a furious war of words on her behalf. The dispute over that ticket is still raging.

“It’s kind of symptomatic of a general problem that we have,” Mr. Dinowitz said. “The way I see it, there are so many legitimate tickets that you can give out without harassing innocent people.”

Ms. Tavarez went to Mr. Dinowitz in April, and the assemblyman wrote a letter to the deputy chief at the NYPD responsible for traffic control.

“Please note that there is in fact no crosswalk, no traffic light, no parking signage and no traffic coming down this street and therefore the ticket should have never been issued,” he wrote, asking for the NYPD to inspect the location, dismiss the ticket and take steps so that parking at Forster Place’s non-intersection would cease to be considered an offense.

Months passed. Then, in early August, Mr. Dinowitz received a letter from a lieutenant in the city’s Parking Enforcement District.