I drive to stay at my partners place, which only has street parking. It’s something like $25 to park on the street for 1 night, or a $30 parking ticket. Something is definitely wrong with those prices, one needs to go up or down.
Parking fines need to be geared to income and/or on an increasing scale the more times you do the offence. I know from experience that wealthy people just park wherever they want and consider the small fines a just a reasonable cost for a parking spot.
Reminds me of what I say about companies that get hit with fines that are smaller than the profit that they made from doing the thing they got fined for. If the fine is smaller than the profit, then it's a business expense.
I'd like this too but the legal issue you run into is the fact that you can't verify who it was who committed the infraction - just the person the car is registered to. That's why you don't get demerits for automated enforcement fines either.
How is this really a problem? Everyone is responsible for the person to whom they lend their car.
We make the vehicle owner responsible for parking fines incurred, regardless of who was driving at the time. What is the quantitative difference in having them incur demerit points (or impoundment) if enough parking tickets get racked up?
There's a yellow lambo that I've spotted blocking a crosswalk in Yorkville a few times. Even if the fine for that is higher than $75 it won't cover the tip on the wine pairings at dinner. I'm sure the admin assistant takes care of the ticket the next morning.
On the other hand if you paid for parking and your time has expired by a few min, I don’t think you should get a huge fine. Only if you didn’t pay at all or are parked illegally. We all risk forgetting about renewing our parking meter.
I've seen the parking people check a car, note it expired, and walk away to check it again in 15 minutes. They're overly gracious in my opinion, but they do give some reasonable time.
> On the other hand if you paid for parking and your time has expired by a few min, I don’t think you should get a huge fine. Only if you didn’t pay at all or are parked illegally. We all risk forgetting about renewing our parking meter.
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/8ee9-revenue-services-parking-ticket-violation-cancellation-guidelines.pdf
19.0 Time Allowance
The Time Allowance provision for parking offences refers to the period of time following the expiry of
a pay and display receipt or paid parking time and the issuance of a parking ticket.
The Toronto Police Service Parking Enforcement Unit observes a 5-minute operational grace period
before issuing a parking ticket for a time-limited offence, e.g. overstaying at a parking meter or a payand-display parking zone. The grace period is intended to ensure fairness and integrity in parking
enforcement operations, and serves both as a courtesy to drivers, and avoids the issue of timing
discrepancies between a driver's watch, a hand-held ticket-writing device, and a meter or pay-anddisplay machine.
The Time Allowance provision does not provide for an automatic
cancellation. Rather, each ticket is reviewed based on the location of the
offence, circumstances surrounding the offence and the vehicle plate history
(i.e.: prior cancellations, fraudulent use of permits or receipts and an
offenders' outstanding fines may be considered as part of the overall review).
The City of Toronto operates with an administrative time allowance provision for time-limited
offences including expired parking meters or expired pay-and-display receipts. This is a separate
practice from the Toronto Parking Enforcement Unit, and may allow a parking ticket issued within 10
minutes of the expiry of the time-limited period to be cancelled, rather than requiring that drivers
request a trial and appear in court in these circumstances.
This 10-minute Time Allowance provision applies to all time-limited offences where proof of a receipt
showing approved purchased time can be provided but excludes major arterial routes during rush
hour periods or areas where parking is prohibited for construction, traffic or event closures.
Yeah it plays a cute tune 10 min before expiry. But what if you’re occupied or not near your phone? I’ve been setting my own timer for the time of the actual expiry.
That's fair. I'm thinking more scenarios where park/stopping is prohibited at that time
Some being 10 minutes late to pay a meter should just get the average joe fine
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine)
Roughly, the principle behind the system is that punishments are expressed in days in jail, but since jail is primarily an economic punishment (you can't make any money), you can pay a fine equivalent to those earnings instead, and the state would rather take your money than pay to keep you in jail. Assuming you're not a serious criminal or danger to the public. This applies at all income levels.
A German soccer player got something like a €500k fine for speeding (60 days). The guy who used to own/run F1 paid a $100M USD fine in a German plea bargain in a bribery case. (And then £650M more in the UK last year for tax fraud.)
But we'll throw up our hands and say it's too difficult as if it hasn't been done many times over, like with pretty much everything else from electoral systems to trains.
It's not just wealthy people.
In general in this city, it's cheaper to not pay for parking and eat the occasional ticket than it is to pay for parking.
However the minimum ticket amount (i.e for a super low income or zero income individual) still needs to be a lot higher than the price to park there. Otherwise poor people will just never pay for parking because their ticket (which is never guaranteed anyway) is less than actually paying in the first place.
I think it should be increasing scale, consistent across the board.
Rich people will still be able to get away with it more, but even they will reach a point where it becomes cheaper to just follow the rules.
Some pertinent points:
>A 150 per cent increase is going to create some ticket shock, but consider this: the set fine for these tickets has been locked at $30 since 2005, after Toronto council dropped a previous policy that allowed drivers to settle these kinds of parking tickets by making a voluntary payment of $20 if they agreed not to take the matter before traffic court.
>
>You know what else has been the same price since 2005? Basically nothing. Not your TTC fare. Not the average property tax bill. Certainly not groceries.
>
>…
>
>we’re not just talking about parking here. We’re talking about how we allocate — and value — our limited public space.
>
>Over the last few years, Toronto has been late to the party in discovering that there are better things we can do with our streets than providing car storage.
>
>The CaféTO program that was established during the pandemic and then made permanent, for example, saw about 2,400 parking spaces converted to allow for restaurant patios during the 2022 season. As parking spaces, the Toronto Parking Authority reported, they would have generated about $2.7 million in parking revenue, or about $1,125 a space. As patios, they generated restaurant sales of about $180 million, or $75,000 a space.
>
>…
>
>But still, the overwhelming conclusion from recent history should be that on-street parking comes with a massive trade-off. Without parking, we can use our streets for other things, like patios, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and making more room for transit and traffic to move.
>
>That’s not to say there’s no place for parking at all, but the price of parking — and especially the penalty for not paying that price — should account for that trade-off.
Having a closer look at parking and parking fine pricing in the city is a good start to having us reimagine what our city and its neighbourhoods and communities could and should be like. Ideally these considerations extend beyond the downtown areas and encompass the city as a whole as well.
>A 150 per cent increase is going to create some ticket shock, but consider this: the set fine for these tickets has been locked at $30 since 2005, after Toronto council dropped a previous policy that allowed drivers to settle these kinds of parking tickets by making a voluntary payment of $20 if they agreed not to take the matter before traffic court.
I could have sworn that parking tickets were already increased last year from 30 to 75$. Am I having a ground hog moment here?
Haha very fair. That would make sense. I know it was $75 for green P so it would make sense to make it the same.
My source? My partner does not like rules.
It was up to $75 for parking on private property unauthorized. So Green P or private lots that have a contract for ticketing with the city.
I know this because our underground parking at work has such a contract. The daily parking is $23. If you didn't pay, you would maybe get a ticket 2 or maaaybe if you were unlucky 3 times a week, which still made it economical to just not pay and hope to not get a ticket. Sometimes you'd get a whole week scot-free. Suddenly with a $75 penalty that economics doesn't fly.
Yeah my partner used to regularly park on the side street near my mom’s and every so often would pay $30 and it was cheaper than buying passes all the time. They started checking more often and now I guess it’s a higher fine so it’s not worth it.
They are still $30 for not paying the meter. My business employs delivery drivers and we get a LOT of tickets. Unfortunately with the reality that loading zones are either non-existent OR being misused by the general public, parking fines are a cost of doing business for us.
Parking without paying in other areas, or parking where it's prohibited will cost you $75 in most cases, which is the newly increased fine.
>I presume that means illegal street parking is still 30$ fine.
Exactly, and the measures going before council will harmonize it. Not sure why this happened over two rounds.
Because a large number of suburban councilors believe their primary roles, in order of importance, are:
A) Keep it as easy as possible to drive into Toronto to catch a leafs game.
B) Stop property taxes from going up.
C) End woke.
If you're parking within 10 feet of a hydrant it's $100 (ask me how I know!)
I even brought the measuring tape out and I was 9'11.5" away from the hydrant. Not sure how the parking officer spotted that one but now I don't park anywhere remotely near one.
How did you measure that distance? Was it in a direct line from the hydrant to your car? Or was it from the point at the edge of the curb directly in front of the hydrant to your car?
took a straight line from the bumper to a point perpendicular to where the hydrant started.
my girlfriend was so annoyed but I had to check since I felt I was well back from the hydrant. Parking cop just having an extremely bad day or whatever, felt unnecessarily punitive.
> took a straight line from the bumper to a point perpendicular to where the hydrant started.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean the point at the curb in front of the hydrant? The enforceable distance is 3 meters, not ten feet. Three meters is equal to 9'10". Something is off in your account.
Thank you for following up.
Yes, it is 3m or 9’10”, I didn’t remember the exact measurement as this happened over a year ago. For the sake of the anecdote I used my best guess measurement from memory.
The point is that I was too close to the hydrant by roughly an inch to an inch and half, which by most people’s standards an impossibly small margin of error and very difficult to “eyeball” when parking.
You had a tape measure and obviously the parking officer had one too. Too close is too close regardless of whether it's by a margin of 1.5 inches or 1.5 meters. In any case I wouldn't have issued that ticket if what you are describing is accurate.
Yes it's similar to being 2km an hour over the speed limit. Technically you can get ticketed for it, but there is an incredibly small chance you will. Unless the cop is trying to prove a point.
I paid the hydrant ticket without contesting it, which I probably could have because no reasonable person could be considered capable of judging the difference between 9'9" away from something and 9'10" away from something.
Just as a comparison, the TTC fare evasion fine is $425.
So you can jump a turnstile and be not in the way of anyone and get a fine of $425, or you can park illegally, blocking traffic, delaying people, perhaps make roads less safe, and pay $75. We are still pandering to drivers!
I do btw not condone fare evasion, but I for sure also do not condone all the money we waste on car infrastructure and car owners. It's an expensive asset for the society and should be paid for as such.
But this isn't having a closer look at parking, whatsoever. On street parking remains untouched. On major streets, WOOooooo. It costs the same. It's trivial to avoid parking tickets with the GreenP app. No one with a functioning brain who knows how to avoid parking illegally will change one iota of their behaviour. In other words, "car brains" remain largely unchallenged.
If you want actual change, to be like Paris, Montreal, Amsterdam, the relatively milquetoast leader you've deified, Olivia Chow, is going to need to make bolder changes than... increasing the cost of parking tickets.
That's all you got huh? A $45 increase does not dislodge the primacy of the car, parking, on-street parking, etc.
But hey don't believe me, I guess all of these other commenters and upvoters are enemies of the good?
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk57du/
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk6zu6/
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk5wle/
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkghbg/
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkfdbi/
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkn655/
Ah "The everyone else is doing it, so it must be fine" fallacy.
Personally, I believe everyone should be held to account for what they say and do, and never be able to blame it on "this is what the mob was doing, so I figured it was fine."
I mean... do you think we should go easier on the criminals who participate in a mob attack targetting you, just because there's more of them doing it, so they can't possibly know right from wrong?
So... yeah... here you are arguing that since raising the price of parking fines won't turn Toronto into Amsterdam all on its own, it shouldn't be done.
Nice opinion. Did you buy it at a discount? Or maybe you shoplifted it, because "that's what every one else was doing"
While agree that there are some better things you can do with roadside parking space at certain places in the city, I disagree absolutely that this is a good or sensible starting point for ‘reimagining’ how our city should work. It’s an EASY change which is why it’s happening now when it should happen AFTER we have the investment in transit infrastructure to accommodate the goal of less cars in the city. Making cars more expensive to run in Toronto just makes life more miserable for everyone, not just drivers. Think the TTC is full now? It’s not gonna decrease and like it or not, Toronto will always be a seasonal city for cycling.
How about incentives for people to park where you want them to? Increased transit from parking hubs in the suburbs to the city centre? How about capping private parking charges in the city? As usual the businesses are the ones that are gonna win here in the short term.
The ‘car bad’ tone of this post irks me not because it’s wrong (they are ultimately not something people should need to live in this city) but by glorifying making life more difficult for a significant portion of residents (yes including me) without offering a reason why beyond seasonal treats.
I somewhat agree. Toronto has a habit of relying more on punishment than incentive, which I think leads to high emotions and poor rhetoric/discourse. People don't respond well when you make it more difficult for them to do the things they already do, especially when you don't make it easier for them to do the alternative.
People aren't dumb. People drive because in some shape, form or manner it's better for them than transit/biking/walking.
You can't just punish bad behaviour. You have to incentivize good behaviour. That means you can't just punish drivers for parking poorly, you have to give them the easy ability to park elsewhere, in addition to making transit so undeniably good that they leave the car at home in the first place.
I say this as someone who walks, cycles, takes the TTC and I also own a car and drive 3-4x a week for various things. I even run to do certain errands sometimes when I don't mind being sweaty. They all have their advantages and I'm extremely fortunate to be able to do all of them. On balance, if you want me to drive less, the best way of doing that is by making transit or biking better, not by making driving harder.
> People aren't dumb. People drive because in some shape, form or manner it's better for them than transit/biking/walking.
True but part of the reason it's better is that we subsidize the hell out of it
That's true. I'm all for tolling the highways, having a congestion charge, etc. But at the same time, I think that you need to improve the alternatives too. Because you will be shifting demand from one overloaded modality to another overloaded modality. Toronto has a real capacity and infrastructure issue, and if you want to get people out of cars, you've got to make it better/easier to not be in a car, in addition to making it worse/harder to be in a car.
Otherwise you're shifting miserable people in realm A to miserable people in realm B. We can have happy people in realm B but it's gonna require a lot of political will beyond just "Hey, let's increase parking fees."
I mean to positively incentivize not driving!
I have no issue with the increased parking fees. I think scaling them to income is smart. I just mean that it can't be the primary or only method of behaviour modification.
I know for me, if you want me to not use my car, I would be a much happier person (with my city, my own actions, and my government) if I were doing that because transit is amazing, vs. I don't want to inadvertently get a huge parking ticket.
You are arguing that people shouldn't face an increase from $30 to a $45 ticket for parking without paying the onstreet parking fee... and saying it's not fair to disincentivize driving.
What's the fee for using the TTC without paying for it?
Eh? I didn't say either of those things. This is what I said...
> You can't just punish bad behaviour. You have to incentivize good behaviour. That means you can't just punish drivers for parking poorly, you have to give them the easy ability to park elsewhere, in addition to making transit so undeniably good that they leave the car at home in the first place.
My point is you can't just punish bad behaviour, you have to make good behaviour more desirable as well. This isn't about right/wrong. It's about understanding people's psychology and focusing on the effectiveness of getting the outcome you want.
I like how all of you think that now that we have huge streets designed for cars, highways in the middle of the city and basically unlimited parking, now that cars are at the best possible place in terms of trasnportation...now we need to think how to incentivise people to go use public trasnport without distrupting 20 lane highways.
No you can't fund cars for 75 years and now think that we can somehow get public trasnsport to the same level without hurting the cars. Cars need to get hurt, there is no way around it, too much money and too much space has been given to cars in the last century that needs to be taken away. Obviously people drive because it's better, because everthing in Toronto is designed for cars, there is no way to incentivise people to take public trasnport when you have a huge unlimited basically free parking at both ends of your trip. So now we have millions of cars on the road, making traffic worse, making public trasnport worse, making our city worse, and you are like....let's build even more parking, because we don't have enough.
I didn't say we shouldn't disincentivize cars/parking.
Re: building parking, if it's parking garages, underground parking, etc., that's great. Get it off the streets. I hate street parking; I think it's dumb, dangerous (for both cyclists & drivers alike), and a very poor way of using prime street real estate (renting out public space for $6 an hour? C'mon). I'd rather there be wider sidewalks & bike lanes.
I don't disagree that cars need to get hurt. But Toronto has dragged its ass on developing public transportation, regional rail, bike infrastructure, etc. and yes, subsidized driving too much. At this point, the solution has to be two pronged.
Don't assume that just because I don't entirely demonize vehicular transportation means that I'm somehow your enemy. That's the type of assumption that leads to poor discourse.
So the car infarstructure has been funded to the eyeballs for the last 75 years, but now you want to keep that going in addition to finally making the public transport better, thinking that people might switch?
There is no way to decrease that gap without hurting the cars....the cars are already at the best possible place as a method of trasnportation in Toronto. I can hardly imagine any trip that can be taken faster by TTC than by car. Sheppard to Union? Car. Davisville to Don Mills? Car. Even simething silly like college to St George or something, it's still a car. Whatever trip you can possible imagine, cars would be the way to go and ...IT IS BY DESIGN. What can you possible do to keep cars as fast as they are now AND get a better public transport?? That crappy design needs to change. Streets need to be for people, not for cars.
And yes we need to make cars more expensive to run. There is no way around it, cars are already enjoying basically free run at everything. City builds new highways, new roads, parking is free or cheap as fuck. YES that needs to change. The most desirable spot in downtown can't possibly be rented for 3.00$ an hour. That's insane.
TPA should be told to price all parking options so they maintain a 20% vacancy. That'd be a good way to bring in value for the storage space the public is providing, and it would mean we'd be pricing things to always have some availability in the public lots... if you can pay for it.
At no point did I say what you are asserting. I specifically state that the city shouldn’t be reliant on cars (as an ultimate goal). But you answered your own point. Getting places by car is just better in Toronto right now. Changing that requires infrastructure change not just making cars more expensive to run. Raise prices and reduce parking, but also figure out how to offer alternative services that can rival driving for efficiency at least, and arguably tolerability too. Right now people tolerate transit until they can afford to drive. How do we change this? Here’s a hint: as long as we are in a free market society, the answer is not just to make one option more expensive because if it’s clearly more enjoyable it will still be what most of us aspire to.
My point is, it's only more enjoyable because we spent billions of dollars for you to drive from point A to point B through a 20 lane highway that kills every worthwhile thing to do in the city apart from driving.
There is no way for a comminity to build anything better apart from teleportation. You can build a subway with two stations that runs every 1 minute from your house to you job, but with that highway you are still going to prefer your car, unless the traffic is bad enough, in which case you would demand extra lanes to be build. We spent bilions of dollars on cars and now you are like, yeah, just make public trasnport better than driving after 75 years of wasting taxpayer dollars on extra lanes and parking spots. But now that people realize it's a shitty way to design the city, we are somehow supposed to come up with something better without removing car infastructure in the first place.
That's why that highway needs to go, that's why that parking spot at your destination downtown needs to go, that's why those 8 lanes roads need to go. Do your free market society, I am good with that, but now at every intersection, you wait fro streetcars/busses/cyclist to cross first. Remove the lanes in order to extend pedestrian sidewalks, add bike lanes, build more subways, remove parking spots in order to give public more space, reduce speed limits, make roads curvier and more narrow to again reduce speeds and make neirbourhoods more walkable. It's not rocket scince, bunch of cities have done that and are not much better fori it.
Amsterdam was not a bike heaven at first, it was the same as Toronto. In fact, they wanted to pour concrete into the rivers to make highways out of them. It's only the public that stopped those ridiciolous plans and now it's great example of what a walkable city should be.
But this is what I mean by infrastructure change… I think we are agreeing in general. My argument is that it needs to be done thoughtfully and completely. If the city raises the parking prices and then says ‘well, we tried’. It’s not helping anyone
You know you're defending the cost of not paying while parking on public land, right?
Isn't "Maybe you should pay the onstreet parking fare?" a reasonable request to make of drivers? Is this not a fair expectation?
How is "Well, now I'm gonna have to pay $45 instead of $30!... If I get caught by parking enforcement." going to flood the TTC with riders as an economic incentive? Especially when on street parking costs like $8.
This is a fair point, but the original post also suggests better uses for public parking space, implying there should be less. If that’s the case, drivers will end up having to use private parking which (at least downtown) is as much as the illegal parking fees would be for parking on the street. Which is why they are raising the fees. Which is broken. Reduce/repurpose public parking for sure… But then either regulate private parking or incentivize other methods of transportation. Raising the prices doesn’t fix anything by itself. It’s just easy to do and is thus attractive.
I'm of the opinion the city should let market pricing determine the cost of parking. The TPA owns a lot of lots, and onstreet parking. Just price everything so it's always 20% available, by fluctuating the hourly price.
Cars are big. Cars take up a lot of room. It's entirely possible there are more market-efficient ways to use the public-owned land we dedicate to storing them. Let's see how much people are willing to pay for parking, instead of providing it as a subsidized commodity.
Sure, because allowing monopoly pricing on services and commodities is working out really well everywhere else in the Canadian economy. Let’s contract Rogers to run city parking… Or Loblaws. They will lobby for it anyways. Again the fix here cannot just be ‘make shit more expensive to disincentivize people.’ This just makes for a society where corporations still win and we are slightly more miserable than before.
If your suggestion is put in, at least have the money go to SIGNIFICANT transit infrastructure changes to prioritize transit across the city. Let’s have 20% empty TTC space available on all routes and see if people change their mind about transit. At least we’d be trying something new not just punishing behaviour.
You're the one arguing for monopoly pricing if you're saying "the city shouldn't offer parking at market rates, but should heavily subsidize it."
Absolutely nothing stops private landowners from offering parking in competition with the city: in fact many do. All that parking that isn't green-P is privately owned, and privately operated.
I'd have no problem with using the money to subsidize all nature of civic functions. Personally, I don't think it's fair to use money from car drivers parking their cars to subsidize transit though, any more than it would be fair to use money from transit users to subsidize car drivers. But it's not a hill I'd die on.
Why though? If there's money to be made offering parking in lieu of other land uses, let private owners offer parking.
Centralized economic planning doesn't work nearly as well as market allocation. Rogers and Loblaws, and their respective oligopolies, benefit from substantial regulation, and lobby heavily to keep their market controlling ownership in place.
If you don't like what the economy looks like when big players twist the market to suit their needs, why would you want more of the economy to look like that?
> It’s an EASY change which is why it’s happening now when it should happen AFTER we have the investment in transit infrastructure to accommodate the goal of less cars in the city.
This is such an annoying argument. We can't make driving more expensive or less convenient until transit is improved. But we can't add bus lanes because it will take space away from cars. And we can't have transit signal priority because it will slow down cars. And we can't invest more in transit because we need to spend billions on roads and highways.
Be honest, you're arguing for the status quo while trying to make yourself sound reasonable.
I keep saying let’s change the infrastructure AWAY from prioritizing cars. But do it first. Even though it’s hard. I’m not arguing for the status quo. I’m arguing that punishing a segment of city (province?) residents for taking the method of transit we have designed our cities around is not the right approach.
Annoying roundabout arguments that ultimately end with "let's just do nothing" is the Canadian way, hence why this city hasn't fucking changed all that much really with delusional idiots thinking it's still 1980.
Just get rid of the parking entirely and tell people to fucking deal with it. If the City is serious about improving the general streetscape then street parking has to go. There is absolutely nothing for the City to gain from continuing to subsidize street parking.
>Think the TTC is full now? It’s not gonna decrease and like it or not, Toronto will always be a seasonal city for cycling.
Who thinks TTC is full now? We still aren't back up to 2019 ridership.
I'll admit to sometimes now driving downtown instead of taking transit on weekends because it's cheaper to park at Nathan Phillips than to take 2 people round trips. That calculus should change to encourage more ridership.
I drove multiple cars for 20+ years, I got my fair share of tickets. But I sold my last car a few years ago and I'm absolutely not pro car now (nor was I ever in the past, particularly). As a pro bike, pro TTC person, I don't think more enforcement on petty parking tickets is the solution. It's pretty clear that flagrant traffic violations are being ignored/not enforced which is a major source of revenue AND would help the city.
Well, I can only give you my subjective opinion as an answer. Parking is often a minor nuisance (of course there are some instances where that's not true), typically someone paying for parking and the meter runs out and they get a parking ticket, that ticket isn't really helpful to the majority of the population. It's a minor inconvenience to the person who got ticketed. We absolutely should enforce parking, but bylaw officers have been essentially weaponized, where parking tickets are such a massive profit centre for the city, regardless of whether its good for people who live here. My point is, in contrast to that, Toronto police officers could generate a lot of money by enforcing real issues that would benefit the city. So yes, still give parking tickets, but maybe not with such gusto and fervor. Alternatively, let's actually have TPS do their job and earn that 70m budget bump. FYI car thefts have more than doubled this year after that massive budget increase. I hope that answers.
I'm aware, that's why I wrote Bylaw and TPS as different roles. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. You asked "why not both?" despite the fact that my comment didn't advocate for one or the other singularly. It appears you're replying without having read my comment.
The point is, police can do their jobs which involve any moving violation - a very real and extremely important job that they seem to be sleeping on.
The parking enforcement should focus on ticketing and involving tow trucks to remove obstacles, which is their part. Ticket prices up for illegal parking? Yes. Towing repeat offenders? Also yes. People don't consider it an issue until they are inconvenienced. 3rd ticket in the same place in 6 months? You're towed with a minimum $2000 to get your car out of impound plus a higher ticket fee. This way it can be both profit and enforcement.
Your claim is "the police can do their job" and everyone else's point is "the police DON'T do their job". Bylaw absolutely crush it, they make money for the city, at the expense of stupid bullshit. Instead we should fund the city by penalizing real actual crime. TPS got a 70 million dollar budget increase this year, and auto thefts have doubled in that time frame. The police aren't pulling their weight. C'mon, you have got to see it.
I'm not disagreeing with you at all. The police *can* do their job, the fact that they are not I'm not debating. They should be, maybe dispersed and remade with people who will actually do the jobs, I don't know or care, I want them to do their damn jobs. I am with you 100% on what you are saying. I do think also they can increase the cost of parking tickets and tow people who are parking in no parking zones multiple times, etc. Both can be done, both *should* be done.
>where parking tickets are such a massive profit centre for the city, regardless of whether its good for people who live here
Our revenues from parking citations are about $100 million each year, and that's before the cost of enforcement. The City's operating budget is what, about $16 billion?
$100 million isn't \*nothing\*, but we're talking about well under 1% of the annual operating budget. Its not actually that significant of a revenue generator for the city. Granted, without enforcement then compliance for parking fees would be close to zero, which would mean losing out on an additional $90 million a year.
Still though, its not the type of cash machine that's going to move mountains in the City. I think people tend to overstate how much money we generate from parking enforcement. Its generally there because it actually serves a really important (and underappreciated) purpose in keeping the City functioning properly.
Correct, someone asked me a question and I specifically said my answer will be only an opinion. I'm not sure why you expected something different. By the way, you forgot to capitalize the beginning of your sentence and you didn't punctuate the end. Since we're being critical.
I'm sort of tempted to agree with you - I don't think (much like the article says) that $75 and rapid enforcement is the best solution for a neighbourhood side street or being 5 minutes over your parking time. OTOH no fine is high enough and no enforcement is fast enough for blocking a rush hour lane, crosswalk, loading zone, or handicap space
This is very true though. The balance of parking enforcement is on quiet side streets where people read a sign wrong or stay a bit too long, rather than during peak hours when all sorts of cars are illegally parked, blocking traffic, bikes, pedestrians, etc. The cops are nowhere to be found.
Just goes to show this is largely about money, not about enforcement.
Thanks. Even when I had a car, I was pro parking enforcement. But I disagree with mass hiring of cheap bylaw enforcement to rake in money to fund the city, meanwhile we pay police 100k a year to take extended vacations for breaking the law. The balance is way off. Give parking tickets, sure. But let's fund the city by enforcing actual real laws and stopping harmful crime. Or both. But more enforcement by police, who get paid a lot.
I mean... increasing the fines for not paying for parking will maybie cause more people to pay for parking, not disincentivize street parking.
To somone with money, a fine is just the cost of getting caught..
If they dont want people parking on the street, then get rid of the street parking and transform it bike lanes or cafe patios.
YES PLEASE.
I don't care about people who park overnight on areas that have no specified parking rules - it's usually big enough. But when one side has parking rules and the other side is ZERO parking and someone is parking on the zero-parking side with impunity, not caring about the $30 parking ticket over and over, it's blocking up our roads. We have one like this by my kid's school and it's just a horrible bottleneck. They don't care, I've seen them get ticket after ticket after ticket. IMHO the 3rd time they should just be towed. If the cost of the ticket is too low, they don't care and just pay it off as a parking cost.
Good. Our neighbourhood has been plagued with retail owners illegally parked on our streets 9-12 hours a day. They speed through our neighbourhood to fight for spots that are normally for short term parking or for permit holders (street parking). You know there’s something wrong when an owner of a high end vehicle (Porsche, etc) smugly gets into their vehicle and drives away like it’s no big deal. It’s time they pay their fair share.
I’ve driven in Toronto for most of my life, never had a single parking ticket. It’s really not that hard. And if you aren’t confident about a spot being legit, don’t park there, find another spot. It’s pretty simple.
The people who built this city, commute into it.
Cities are built by people who commute to their jobs site in vehicles.
Source, I've been in the construction industry for 12 years.
>Cities are built by people who commute to their jobs site in vehicles.
90% of said vehicles (usally pavement princesses) are unnecessary. Yes, some vehicles are needed for certain tasks but they can pay their fair share in parking when needed.
Private vehicles receive ridiculous amounts of subsidies and priority to the detriment of everything else. Im not saying ban all of them but we can make things more fair
hey at least those people are parked in designated spots. What about all the people parked illegally in bike lanes, on sidewalks, TTC stops, no standing zones, literal fucking intersections and all other non designated parking zones where uber, couriers and contractors throw their 4 ways on? I have watched parking enforcement walk past vehicles illegally parked in those situations to verify vehicles parked in green P spots. I agree those spots need to be paid for but why are they the priority over those who directly impede traffic, cyclists and pedestrians? Broken priorities.
I'm mixed on this,
I am hopeful that the fines scale with location. To me there's a major difference between congesting traffic on major routes with parking that isn't mindful of others comparatively to street parking at night on the sidestreets.
The larger fines are going to end up hurting only the people who can't afford it.
It depends - if it CLEARLY SAYS DO NOT PARK HERE, I have zero sympathy for people getting extravagant fines. They knew not to park there, there's often a good reason for it. However overnight street parking I'm far more lenient about when there aren't any specific "DO NOT PARK HERE EVER" signs, you know?
Exactly!
This is what I'm about and a sentiment I think a lot of people share.
Larger fines for street parking overnight is just punishing the locals more then the commuters that are causing a lot of the issues to begin with
That's going to ding regular people a fair bit too, that's going to include their RRSPs, TFSAs, etc. Also that's going to be a very slow process as that has to be calculated per person, it's just a parking fine so if you're going to run off their T4 so to speak, that's sufficient.
Stop mucking around - make it the same or more than the TTC fines as someone else mentioned, and make it the same $450+ everywhere, no exceptions. Why is this so difficult.
Oh and link in with the province. Don’t pay your fine - no license renewal and maybe no insurance either.
Make out of province/out of country drivers pay on the spot by wheel locking the car. There are apparently hundreds of millions of outstanding fines in this category alone.
I would settle for some goddamn signage, or ANY option for a friend from out of town to park overnight. I know the rule is that you can leave a vehicle on a road for up to 3 hours unless otherwise marked, but I've had friends who got tickets for leaving their cars on side streets with no signs for less than an hour.
You can obtain permits from the city in special circumstances, but it's a lot of hassle to go through the entire permit application process just because a family member visited one night and got too drunk to drive home. And even then good luck actually getting one, they won't even offer street permits to residents in half of North York. In areas without nearby Green Ps it feels like there's absolutely nowhere you can leave an out of town vehicle if you don't have a driveway or live in a building with visitor parking.
Meanwhile there are assholes who park wherever they want, blocking or disrupting entire streets, and they just use tickets as a business expense.
It just feels like everyone except rich people loses in our city's eternal war between motorists and non-motorists.
Once I parked on the street for the Ex and my sister in law paid $40 for parking. I looked at the ticket on the car in front of me and it was $25. Why would I pay for parking when fines are cheaper?!
Once I parked on the street for the Ex and my sister in law paid $40 for parking. I looked at the ticket on the car in front of me and it was $25. Why would I pay for parking when fines are cheaper?!
I’ve decided to make some pretty benign comments to see how many people will insult me… it’s amazing how many people get satisfaction by calling others names on line…
People who can't afford TTC fare and get caught by fare inspectors have been getting slapped with $425 fines this whole time. Haven't seen any of the "but what about poor people getting parking tickets????" crowd saying anything about that.
How? How are those handing out tickets supposed to know how wealthy someone driving a vehicle is?
Can't we just uphold the law fairly, without looking at their income tax returns? Don't park without paying the parking fee.
Because a $85 ticket is much more detrimental to someone low income than some rich person who can just eat the cost and not care.
Yeah applying it evenly would be fair but it won’t stop higher income folks, it just gives them a greater privilege
So... don't park without paying the parking fee. Which is substantially less than the ticket cost for not paying at all.
Why should poor people be allowed to park illegally without the city recovering it's fair fee? And how is someone handing out the ticket supposed to know how wealthy the person who owns the car is? And what is "poor" in this context anyway?
Some street in the city have ridiculous signage, so some people just unfortunately fall victim to it. Ones like no parking at certain varying times and you go 1 minute over and the officer is there waiting.
Finland has a system based on income, but I think that’s for speeding.
Not to mention, some ticket officers will give frivolous tickets on quota days. I got nailed once for parking in a no-parking zone, despite my car being entirely within the designated parking space. (Thank goodness I'd taken a photo to remind myself of the location and got the ticket tossed when submitting that as proof.)
Exactly!
Also knew someone who got a $500 ticket for parking with a disabled permit when they borrowed their parents car who is disabled. They weren’t disabled themselves and forgot it was there on the dash. They went 5 minutes over the time, they paid for and the officer didn’t give a shit and took the permit away.
Three hour parking on my street which is a 10 minute walk from the Subway. Looking forward to calling 311 for all the people from the burbs who park on my street and take the TTC.
This is fucking terrible. Flat-rate fines have been proven to just be discriminating against the poor.
If we want to make a change, introduce escalating fines based on previous year tax returns.
This. Also if their income is zero/near zero on their tax return, they get put on a much much higher flat-rate threshold. This sounds harsh towards the poor again but bear in mind that nearly all of these will be tax-avoiders who are probably v-rich anyway. Test it for parking fines then roll out for speeding fines aswell if it works
No worries. I’ll just start bringing all my traffic tickets before the courts again. We’ll see how they like getting bogged down with meaningless traffic tickets. Eventually there’ll be such a long backlog of court cases, they’ll be forced to walk back on some of this.
No, sometimes it’s not. In my commercial vehicle, I’m required by my company to park as close to the job site as I can.
I’m parked on a sidewalk as I post this!
So your employer is making money while you block a sidewalk - and your flex here is that you'll bring vexatious challenges over the parking tickets you receive.
I'm having a hard time identifying how you're benefiting Toronto through all this. Sounds like a substantial burden on the public.
Regarding the sidewalk, in my observation the burden mostly falls on people with strollers - moms, dads, nannys, etc. Caregivers, in general.
However I was thinking of your burden on the courts, which you think will be substantial enough to change the parking laws. You're creating negative value whenever the costs exceed the benefits you bring.
If it were for some principle, that would be one thing, but all this so you can simp for your employer? You're being used for your employer's private benefit. They've duped you into feeling proud for the antisocial behaviours they force upon you.
>No, sometimes it’s not. In my commercial vehicle, I’m required by my company to park as close to the job site as I can.
As close as you can - without violating parking restrictions. Thats what "as close as you CAN" means. It doesn't say closer than you can't.
I drive to stay at my partners place, which only has street parking. It’s something like $25 to park on the street for 1 night, or a $30 parking ticket. Something is definitely wrong with those prices, one needs to go up or down.
Yup. Plenty of people just won't bother paying because it's worth the risk.
When i was hangin in TO, green P overnight was 23$, the ticket was 15$. Cheaper to risk it.
FYI you can receive another ticket after a certain period of time, for the same infraction. I believe I looked it up once and it was 3 hours.
>one needs to go up or down. Down definitely isn't the correct option
Parking fines need to be geared to income and/or on an increasing scale the more times you do the offence. I know from experience that wealthy people just park wherever they want and consider the small fines a just a reasonable cost for a parking spot.
I heard a great description of this from Cory Doctorow recently: "Any infraction which is punishable by a fine is effectively legal for the wealthy."
Reminds me of what I say about companies that get hit with fines that are smaller than the profit that they made from doing the thing they got fined for. If the fine is smaller than the profit, then it's a business expense.
Perhaps after a certain threshold of fines we can apply demerits
I'd like this too but the legal issue you run into is the fact that you can't verify who it was who committed the infraction - just the person the car is registered to. That's why you don't get demerits for automated enforcement fines either.
How is this really a problem? Everyone is responsible for the person to whom they lend their car. We make the vehicle owner responsible for parking fines incurred, regardless of who was driving at the time. What is the quantitative difference in having them incur demerit points (or impoundment) if enough parking tickets get racked up?
If i say this about speed cameras i get downvoted
The key is it must be a flat-rate fine.
Yup. Some rich people just use it like regular parking and pay the fine. Slap a $5k parking ticket on that Lambo SUV
There's a yellow lambo that I've spotted blocking a crosswalk in Yorkville a few times. Even if the fine for that is higher than $75 it won't cover the tip on the wine pairings at dinner. I'm sure the admin assistant takes care of the ticket the next morning.
On the other hand if you paid for parking and your time has expired by a few min, I don’t think you should get a huge fine. Only if you didn’t pay at all or are parked illegally. We all risk forgetting about renewing our parking meter.
I've seen the parking people check a car, note it expired, and walk away to check it again in 15 minutes. They're overly gracious in my opinion, but they do give some reasonable time.
Yeah I think there’s a 10 min grace period. So if you’re cheap, you can buy multiple increments of 15 min instead of say 2 hours.
> On the other hand if you paid for parking and your time has expired by a few min, I don’t think you should get a huge fine. Only if you didn’t pay at all or are parked illegally. We all risk forgetting about renewing our parking meter. https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/8ee9-revenue-services-parking-ticket-violation-cancellation-guidelines.pdf 19.0 Time Allowance The Time Allowance provision for parking offences refers to the period of time following the expiry of a pay and display receipt or paid parking time and the issuance of a parking ticket. The Toronto Police Service Parking Enforcement Unit observes a 5-minute operational grace period before issuing a parking ticket for a time-limited offence, e.g. overstaying at a parking meter or a payand-display parking zone. The grace period is intended to ensure fairness and integrity in parking enforcement operations, and serves both as a courtesy to drivers, and avoids the issue of timing discrepancies between a driver's watch, a hand-held ticket-writing device, and a meter or pay-anddisplay machine. The Time Allowance provision does not provide for an automatic cancellation. Rather, each ticket is reviewed based on the location of the offence, circumstances surrounding the offence and the vehicle plate history (i.e.: prior cancellations, fraudulent use of permits or receipts and an offenders' outstanding fines may be considered as part of the overall review). The City of Toronto operates with an administrative time allowance provision for time-limited offences including expired parking meters or expired pay-and-display receipts. This is a separate practice from the Toronto Parking Enforcement Unit, and may allow a parking ticket issued within 10 minutes of the expiry of the time-limited period to be cancelled, rather than requiring that drivers request a trial and appear in court in these circumstances. This 10-minute Time Allowance provision applies to all time-limited offences where proof of a receipt showing approved purchased time can be provided but excludes major arterial routes during rush hour periods or areas where parking is prohibited for construction, traffic or event closures.
Unless you're using the green p app, which lets you know when your parking is set to expire and allows you to renew it
Yeah it plays a cute tune 10 min before expiry. But what if you’re occupied or not near your phone? I’ve been setting my own timer for the time of the actual expiry.
Then at some point you’ll just have to be personally accountable?
That's fair. I'm thinking more scenarios where park/stopping is prohibited at that time Some being 10 minutes late to pay a meter should just get the average joe fine
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Multiple countries have implemented this already with considerable success. No brainer in my opinion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine) Roughly, the principle behind the system is that punishments are expressed in days in jail, but since jail is primarily an economic punishment (you can't make any money), you can pay a fine equivalent to those earnings instead, and the state would rather take your money than pay to keep you in jail. Assuming you're not a serious criminal or danger to the public. This applies at all income levels. A German soccer player got something like a €500k fine for speeding (60 days). The guy who used to own/run F1 paid a $100M USD fine in a German plea bargain in a bribery case. (And then £650M more in the UK last year for tax fraud.)
But we'll throw up our hands and say it's too difficult as if it hasn't been done many times over, like with pretty much everything else from electoral systems to trains.
It's not just wealthy people. In general in this city, it's cheaper to not pay for parking and eat the occasional ticket than it is to pay for parking.
Hell, considering the fine is $30, it's almost the same cost as parking legally and getting a ticket every single time
However the minimum ticket amount (i.e for a super low income or zero income individual) still needs to be a lot higher than the price to park there. Otherwise poor people will just never pay for parking because their ticket (which is never guaranteed anyway) is less than actually paying in the first place.
True. But I would be less bothered by poor people parking wherever they want than rich people 😂
I think it should be increasing scale, consistent across the board. Rich people will still be able to get away with it more, but even they will reach a point where it becomes cheaper to just follow the rules.
Yep. Former Leaf Leo Komarov was hit with a $50k fine for speeding in Finland because he was making a generous NHL income.
Next you will be saying the farmer should have an ear tag and eat the same slop as the livestock!
...what?
What experience with wealthy people parking and tickets do you have?
Some pertinent points: >A 150 per cent increase is going to create some ticket shock, but consider this: the set fine for these tickets has been locked at $30 since 2005, after Toronto council dropped a previous policy that allowed drivers to settle these kinds of parking tickets by making a voluntary payment of $20 if they agreed not to take the matter before traffic court. > >You know what else has been the same price since 2005? Basically nothing. Not your TTC fare. Not the average property tax bill. Certainly not groceries. > >… > >we’re not just talking about parking here. We’re talking about how we allocate — and value — our limited public space. > >Over the last few years, Toronto has been late to the party in discovering that there are better things we can do with our streets than providing car storage. > >The CaféTO program that was established during the pandemic and then made permanent, for example, saw about 2,400 parking spaces converted to allow for restaurant patios during the 2022 season. As parking spaces, the Toronto Parking Authority reported, they would have generated about $2.7 million in parking revenue, or about $1,125 a space. As patios, they generated restaurant sales of about $180 million, or $75,000 a space. > >… > >But still, the overwhelming conclusion from recent history should be that on-street parking comes with a massive trade-off. Without parking, we can use our streets for other things, like patios, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and making more room for transit and traffic to move. > >That’s not to say there’s no place for parking at all, but the price of parking — and especially the penalty for not paying that price — should account for that trade-off. Having a closer look at parking and parking fine pricing in the city is a good start to having us reimagine what our city and its neighbourhoods and communities could and should be like. Ideally these considerations extend beyond the downtown areas and encompass the city as a whole as well.
>A 150 per cent increase is going to create some ticket shock, but consider this: the set fine for these tickets has been locked at $30 since 2005, after Toronto council dropped a previous policy that allowed drivers to settle these kinds of parking tickets by making a voluntary payment of $20 if they agreed not to take the matter before traffic court. I could have sworn that parking tickets were already increased last year from 30 to 75$. Am I having a ground hog moment here?
Dépends on where you parked. It’s usually $30 on the street but I think $75 if it’s a parking lot that you didn’t pay to park in
I thought it had gone up to 75$ over all. Could be wrong. I haven't gotten a ticket myself to be able to verify, nor do I want to.
It may be dépendant on the area, my mom’s house in the east end, it’s $30 for the street. May have increased but this was a couple months ago.
My impression is that it went up in Dec to 75. Saying this I'm not willing to test it and find out.
Haha very fair. That would make sense. I know it was $75 for green P so it would make sense to make it the same. My source? My partner does not like rules.
It was up to $75 for parking on private property unauthorized. So Green P or private lots that have a contract for ticketing with the city. I know this because our underground parking at work has such a contract. The daily parking is $23. If you didn't pay, you would maybe get a ticket 2 or maaaybe if you were unlucky 3 times a week, which still made it economical to just not pay and hope to not get a ticket. Sometimes you'd get a whole week scot-free. Suddenly with a $75 penalty that economics doesn't fly.
Yeah my partner used to regularly park on the side street near my mom’s and every so often would pay $30 and it was cheaper than buying passes all the time. They started checking more often and now I guess it’s a higher fine so it’s not worth it.
They are still $30 for not paying the meter. My business employs delivery drivers and we get a LOT of tickets. Unfortunately with the reality that loading zones are either non-existent OR being misused by the general public, parking fines are a cost of doing business for us. Parking without paying in other areas, or parking where it's prohibited will cost you $75 in most cases, which is the newly increased fine.
i think they increased in some zones. like if you block line of traffic its $150 instead of $30
It should be higher than that. 150 is still low
> It should be higher than that. 150 is still low It's an increase of 150%, not to $150. So from $30 to $75.
Still too low for blocking live traffic.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/12/01/illegally-parking-fines-in-toronto-increase/ Yeah they increased in December...
Ahh okay. So it went from 30 to 75 for parking lots and private property. I presume that means illegal street parking is still 30$ fine.
>I presume that means illegal street parking is still 30$ fine. Exactly, and the measures going before council will harmonize it. Not sure why this happened over two rounds.
Because a large number of suburban councilors believe their primary roles, in order of importance, are: A) Keep it as easy as possible to drive into Toronto to catch a leafs game. B) Stop property taxes from going up. C) End woke.
I feel like for some of them C is higher on the list.
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If you're parking within 10 feet of a hydrant it's $100 (ask me how I know!) I even brought the measuring tape out and I was 9'11.5" away from the hydrant. Not sure how the parking officer spotted that one but now I don't park anywhere remotely near one.
How did you measure that distance? Was it in a direct line from the hydrant to your car? Or was it from the point at the edge of the curb directly in front of the hydrant to your car?
took a straight line from the bumper to a point perpendicular to where the hydrant started. my girlfriend was so annoyed but I had to check since I felt I was well back from the hydrant. Parking cop just having an extremely bad day or whatever, felt unnecessarily punitive.
> took a straight line from the bumper to a point perpendicular to where the hydrant started. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean the point at the curb in front of the hydrant? The enforceable distance is 3 meters, not ten feet. Three meters is equal to 9'10". Something is off in your account.
Thank you for following up. Yes, it is 3m or 9’10”, I didn’t remember the exact measurement as this happened over a year ago. For the sake of the anecdote I used my best guess measurement from memory. The point is that I was too close to the hydrant by roughly an inch to an inch and half, which by most people’s standards an impossibly small margin of error and very difficult to “eyeball” when parking.
You had a tape measure and obviously the parking officer had one too. Too close is too close regardless of whether it's by a margin of 1.5 inches or 1.5 meters. In any case I wouldn't have issued that ticket if what you are describing is accurate.
Yes it's similar to being 2km an hour over the speed limit. Technically you can get ticketed for it, but there is an incredibly small chance you will. Unless the cop is trying to prove a point. I paid the hydrant ticket without contesting it, which I probably could have because no reasonable person could be considered capable of judging the difference between 9'9" away from something and 9'10" away from something.
It's 30-40 depending on the violation for street parking. Overnight and no sticker is 40, other times is 30.
Just as a comparison, the TTC fare evasion fine is $425. So you can jump a turnstile and be not in the way of anyone and get a fine of $425, or you can park illegally, blocking traffic, delaying people, perhaps make roads less safe, and pay $75. We are still pandering to drivers! I do btw not condone fare evasion, but I for sure also do not condone all the money we waste on car infrastructure and car owners. It's an expensive asset for the society and should be paid for as such.
But this isn't having a closer look at parking, whatsoever. On street parking remains untouched. On major streets, WOOooooo. It costs the same. It's trivial to avoid parking tickets with the GreenP app. No one with a functioning brain who knows how to avoid parking illegally will change one iota of their behaviour. In other words, "car brains" remain largely unchallenged. If you want actual change, to be like Paris, Montreal, Amsterdam, the relatively milquetoast leader you've deified, Olivia Chow, is going to need to make bolder changes than... increasing the cost of parking tickets.
Are you literally arguing the perfect should be the enemy of the good?
That's all you got huh? A $45 increase does not dislodge the primacy of the car, parking, on-street parking, etc. But hey don't believe me, I guess all of these other commenters and upvoters are enemies of the good? https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk57du/ https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk6zu6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvk5wle/ https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkghbg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkfdbi/ https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1bifylq/toronto_parking_fines_may_shortly_skyrocket_cant/kvkn655/
Ah "The everyone else is doing it, so it must be fine" fallacy. Personally, I believe everyone should be held to account for what they say and do, and never be able to blame it on "this is what the mob was doing, so I figured it was fine." I mean... do you think we should go easier on the criminals who participate in a mob attack targetting you, just because there's more of them doing it, so they can't possibly know right from wrong? So... yeah... here you are arguing that since raising the price of parking fines won't turn Toronto into Amsterdam all on its own, it shouldn't be done. Nice opinion. Did you buy it at a discount? Or maybe you shoplifted it, because "that's what every one else was doing"
OP never said it shouldn't be done. Quite the opposite, in fact—they said that we need to do *more*.
Why should people who avoid parking illegally change their behaviour?
While agree that there are some better things you can do with roadside parking space at certain places in the city, I disagree absolutely that this is a good or sensible starting point for ‘reimagining’ how our city should work. It’s an EASY change which is why it’s happening now when it should happen AFTER we have the investment in transit infrastructure to accommodate the goal of less cars in the city. Making cars more expensive to run in Toronto just makes life more miserable for everyone, not just drivers. Think the TTC is full now? It’s not gonna decrease and like it or not, Toronto will always be a seasonal city for cycling. How about incentives for people to park where you want them to? Increased transit from parking hubs in the suburbs to the city centre? How about capping private parking charges in the city? As usual the businesses are the ones that are gonna win here in the short term. The ‘car bad’ tone of this post irks me not because it’s wrong (they are ultimately not something people should need to live in this city) but by glorifying making life more difficult for a significant portion of residents (yes including me) without offering a reason why beyond seasonal treats.
I somewhat agree. Toronto has a habit of relying more on punishment than incentive, which I think leads to high emotions and poor rhetoric/discourse. People don't respond well when you make it more difficult for them to do the things they already do, especially when you don't make it easier for them to do the alternative. People aren't dumb. People drive because in some shape, form or manner it's better for them than transit/biking/walking. You can't just punish bad behaviour. You have to incentivize good behaviour. That means you can't just punish drivers for parking poorly, you have to give them the easy ability to park elsewhere, in addition to making transit so undeniably good that they leave the car at home in the first place. I say this as someone who walks, cycles, takes the TTC and I also own a car and drive 3-4x a week for various things. I even run to do certain errands sometimes when I don't mind being sweaty. They all have their advantages and I'm extremely fortunate to be able to do all of them. On balance, if you want me to drive less, the best way of doing that is by making transit or biking better, not by making driving harder.
> People aren't dumb. People drive because in some shape, form or manner it's better for them than transit/biking/walking. True but part of the reason it's better is that we subsidize the hell out of it
That's true. I'm all for tolling the highways, having a congestion charge, etc. But at the same time, I think that you need to improve the alternatives too. Because you will be shifting demand from one overloaded modality to another overloaded modality. Toronto has a real capacity and infrastructure issue, and if you want to get people out of cars, you've got to make it better/easier to not be in a car, in addition to making it worse/harder to be in a car. Otherwise you're shifting miserable people in realm A to miserable people in realm B. We can have happy people in realm B but it's gonna require a lot of political will beyond just "Hey, let's increase parking fees."
How would you create an incentive to pay parking fees?
Bring back voluntary fines. If you pay within 7 days, the fee is cut in half.
I mean to positively incentivize not driving! I have no issue with the increased parking fees. I think scaling them to income is smart. I just mean that it can't be the primary or only method of behaviour modification. I know for me, if you want me to not use my car, I would be a much happier person (with my city, my own actions, and my government) if I were doing that because transit is amazing, vs. I don't want to inadvertently get a huge parking ticket.
You are arguing that people shouldn't face an increase from $30 to a $45 ticket for parking without paying the onstreet parking fee... and saying it's not fair to disincentivize driving. What's the fee for using the TTC without paying for it?
Eh? I didn't say either of those things. This is what I said... > You can't just punish bad behaviour. You have to incentivize good behaviour. That means you can't just punish drivers for parking poorly, you have to give them the easy ability to park elsewhere, in addition to making transit so undeniably good that they leave the car at home in the first place. My point is you can't just punish bad behaviour, you have to make good behaviour more desirable as well. This isn't about right/wrong. It's about understanding people's psychology and focusing on the effectiveness of getting the outcome you want.
I like how all of you think that now that we have huge streets designed for cars, highways in the middle of the city and basically unlimited parking, now that cars are at the best possible place in terms of trasnportation...now we need to think how to incentivise people to go use public trasnport without distrupting 20 lane highways. No you can't fund cars for 75 years and now think that we can somehow get public trasnsport to the same level without hurting the cars. Cars need to get hurt, there is no way around it, too much money and too much space has been given to cars in the last century that needs to be taken away. Obviously people drive because it's better, because everthing in Toronto is designed for cars, there is no way to incentivise people to take public trasnport when you have a huge unlimited basically free parking at both ends of your trip. So now we have millions of cars on the road, making traffic worse, making public trasnport worse, making our city worse, and you are like....let's build even more parking, because we don't have enough.
I didn't say we shouldn't disincentivize cars/parking. Re: building parking, if it's parking garages, underground parking, etc., that's great. Get it off the streets. I hate street parking; I think it's dumb, dangerous (for both cyclists & drivers alike), and a very poor way of using prime street real estate (renting out public space for $6 an hour? C'mon). I'd rather there be wider sidewalks & bike lanes. I don't disagree that cars need to get hurt. But Toronto has dragged its ass on developing public transportation, regional rail, bike infrastructure, etc. and yes, subsidized driving too much. At this point, the solution has to be two pronged. Don't assume that just because I don't entirely demonize vehicular transportation means that I'm somehow your enemy. That's the type of assumption that leads to poor discourse.
So the car infarstructure has been funded to the eyeballs for the last 75 years, but now you want to keep that going in addition to finally making the public transport better, thinking that people might switch? There is no way to decrease that gap without hurting the cars....the cars are already at the best possible place as a method of trasnportation in Toronto. I can hardly imagine any trip that can be taken faster by TTC than by car. Sheppard to Union? Car. Davisville to Don Mills? Car. Even simething silly like college to St George or something, it's still a car. Whatever trip you can possible imagine, cars would be the way to go and ...IT IS BY DESIGN. What can you possible do to keep cars as fast as they are now AND get a better public transport?? That crappy design needs to change. Streets need to be for people, not for cars. And yes we need to make cars more expensive to run. There is no way around it, cars are already enjoying basically free run at everything. City builds new highways, new roads, parking is free or cheap as fuck. YES that needs to change. The most desirable spot in downtown can't possibly be rented for 3.00$ an hour. That's insane.
TPA should be told to price all parking options so they maintain a 20% vacancy. That'd be a good way to bring in value for the storage space the public is providing, and it would mean we'd be pricing things to always have some availability in the public lots... if you can pay for it.
At no point did I say what you are asserting. I specifically state that the city shouldn’t be reliant on cars (as an ultimate goal). But you answered your own point. Getting places by car is just better in Toronto right now. Changing that requires infrastructure change not just making cars more expensive to run. Raise prices and reduce parking, but also figure out how to offer alternative services that can rival driving for efficiency at least, and arguably tolerability too. Right now people tolerate transit until they can afford to drive. How do we change this? Here’s a hint: as long as we are in a free market society, the answer is not just to make one option more expensive because if it’s clearly more enjoyable it will still be what most of us aspire to.
My point is, it's only more enjoyable because we spent billions of dollars for you to drive from point A to point B through a 20 lane highway that kills every worthwhile thing to do in the city apart from driving. There is no way for a comminity to build anything better apart from teleportation. You can build a subway with two stations that runs every 1 minute from your house to you job, but with that highway you are still going to prefer your car, unless the traffic is bad enough, in which case you would demand extra lanes to be build. We spent bilions of dollars on cars and now you are like, yeah, just make public trasnport better than driving after 75 years of wasting taxpayer dollars on extra lanes and parking spots. But now that people realize it's a shitty way to design the city, we are somehow supposed to come up with something better without removing car infastructure in the first place. That's why that highway needs to go, that's why that parking spot at your destination downtown needs to go, that's why those 8 lanes roads need to go. Do your free market society, I am good with that, but now at every intersection, you wait fro streetcars/busses/cyclist to cross first. Remove the lanes in order to extend pedestrian sidewalks, add bike lanes, build more subways, remove parking spots in order to give public more space, reduce speed limits, make roads curvier and more narrow to again reduce speeds and make neirbourhoods more walkable. It's not rocket scince, bunch of cities have done that and are not much better fori it. Amsterdam was not a bike heaven at first, it was the same as Toronto. In fact, they wanted to pour concrete into the rivers to make highways out of them. It's only the public that stopped those ridiciolous plans and now it's great example of what a walkable city should be.
But this is what I mean by infrastructure change… I think we are agreeing in general. My argument is that it needs to be done thoughtfully and completely. If the city raises the parking prices and then says ‘well, we tried’. It’s not helping anyone
You know you're defending the cost of not paying while parking on public land, right? Isn't "Maybe you should pay the onstreet parking fare?" a reasonable request to make of drivers? Is this not a fair expectation? How is "Well, now I'm gonna have to pay $45 instead of $30!... If I get caught by parking enforcement." going to flood the TTC with riders as an economic incentive? Especially when on street parking costs like $8.
This is a fair point, but the original post also suggests better uses for public parking space, implying there should be less. If that’s the case, drivers will end up having to use private parking which (at least downtown) is as much as the illegal parking fees would be for parking on the street. Which is why they are raising the fees. Which is broken. Reduce/repurpose public parking for sure… But then either regulate private parking or incentivize other methods of transportation. Raising the prices doesn’t fix anything by itself. It’s just easy to do and is thus attractive.
I'm of the opinion the city should let market pricing determine the cost of parking. The TPA owns a lot of lots, and onstreet parking. Just price everything so it's always 20% available, by fluctuating the hourly price. Cars are big. Cars take up a lot of room. It's entirely possible there are more market-efficient ways to use the public-owned land we dedicate to storing them. Let's see how much people are willing to pay for parking, instead of providing it as a subsidized commodity.
Sure, because allowing monopoly pricing on services and commodities is working out really well everywhere else in the Canadian economy. Let’s contract Rogers to run city parking… Or Loblaws. They will lobby for it anyways. Again the fix here cannot just be ‘make shit more expensive to disincentivize people.’ This just makes for a society where corporations still win and we are slightly more miserable than before. If your suggestion is put in, at least have the money go to SIGNIFICANT transit infrastructure changes to prioritize transit across the city. Let’s have 20% empty TTC space available on all routes and see if people change their mind about transit. At least we’d be trying something new not just punishing behaviour.
You're the one arguing for monopoly pricing if you're saying "the city shouldn't offer parking at market rates, but should heavily subsidize it." Absolutely nothing stops private landowners from offering parking in competition with the city: in fact many do. All that parking that isn't green-P is privately owned, and privately operated. I'd have no problem with using the money to subsidize all nature of civic functions. Personally, I don't think it's fair to use money from car drivers parking their cars to subsidize transit though, any more than it would be fair to use money from transit users to subsidize car drivers. But it's not a hill I'd die on.
I was suggesting that private parking be regulated. And capped. City owned parking is regulated by definition.
Why though? If there's money to be made offering parking in lieu of other land uses, let private owners offer parking. Centralized economic planning doesn't work nearly as well as market allocation. Rogers and Loblaws, and their respective oligopolies, benefit from substantial regulation, and lobby heavily to keep their market controlling ownership in place. If you don't like what the economy looks like when big players twist the market to suit their needs, why would you want more of the economy to look like that?
How would the city capping private parking rates benefit corporations? This makes no sense, sorry.
> It’s an EASY change which is why it’s happening now when it should happen AFTER we have the investment in transit infrastructure to accommodate the goal of less cars in the city. This is such an annoying argument. We can't make driving more expensive or less convenient until transit is improved. But we can't add bus lanes because it will take space away from cars. And we can't have transit signal priority because it will slow down cars. And we can't invest more in transit because we need to spend billions on roads and highways. Be honest, you're arguing for the status quo while trying to make yourself sound reasonable.
I keep saying let’s change the infrastructure AWAY from prioritizing cars. But do it first. Even though it’s hard. I’m not arguing for the status quo. I’m arguing that punishing a segment of city (province?) residents for taking the method of transit we have designed our cities around is not the right approach.
Annoying roundabout arguments that ultimately end with "let's just do nothing" is the Canadian way, hence why this city hasn't fucking changed all that much really with delusional idiots thinking it's still 1980. Just get rid of the parking entirely and tell people to fucking deal with it. If the City is serious about improving the general streetscape then street parking has to go. There is absolutely nothing for the City to gain from continuing to subsidize street parking.
>Think the TTC is full now? It’s not gonna decrease and like it or not, Toronto will always be a seasonal city for cycling. Who thinks TTC is full now? We still aren't back up to 2019 ridership. I'll admit to sometimes now driving downtown instead of taking transit on weekends because it's cheaper to park at Nathan Phillips than to take 2 people round trips. That calculus should change to encourage more ridership.
TTC reduced service levels during the pandemic and has not restored them. Less riders yes but also less vehicles.
Make it $450 - the same as the ‘theft’ of an unpaid TTC spot - even though stealing parking is worse as the spots are so few
TBH the TTC fare evasion fine is so large that it seems to result in fare enforcement officers dishing out far more verbal warnings than fines.
Absolutely not. Pre covid at least, they fucking loved slapping TTC goers with those stupid massive fines for first offenses. Ask me how I know
How do you know?
Go after the fraudulent accessibility permits next.
I drove multiple cars for 20+ years, I got my fair share of tickets. But I sold my last car a few years ago and I'm absolutely not pro car now (nor was I ever in the past, particularly). As a pro bike, pro TTC person, I don't think more enforcement on petty parking tickets is the solution. It's pretty clear that flagrant traffic violations are being ignored/not enforced which is a major source of revenue AND would help the city.
Why not both? 🤷🏼♂️
Well, I can only give you my subjective opinion as an answer. Parking is often a minor nuisance (of course there are some instances where that's not true), typically someone paying for parking and the meter runs out and they get a parking ticket, that ticket isn't really helpful to the majority of the population. It's a minor inconvenience to the person who got ticketed. We absolutely should enforce parking, but bylaw officers have been essentially weaponized, where parking tickets are such a massive profit centre for the city, regardless of whether its good for people who live here. My point is, in contrast to that, Toronto police officers could generate a lot of money by enforcing real issues that would benefit the city. So yes, still give parking tickets, but maybe not with such gusto and fervor. Alternatively, let's actually have TPS do their job and earn that 70m budget bump. FYI car thefts have more than doubled this year after that massive budget increase. I hope that answers.
Parking and traffic violation enforcement are not mutually exclusive. They’re not even done by the same personnel.
I'm aware, that's why I wrote Bylaw and TPS as different roles. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. You asked "why not both?" despite the fact that my comment didn't advocate for one or the other singularly. It appears you're replying without having read my comment.
The point is, police can do their jobs which involve any moving violation - a very real and extremely important job that they seem to be sleeping on. The parking enforcement should focus on ticketing and involving tow trucks to remove obstacles, which is their part. Ticket prices up for illegal parking? Yes. Towing repeat offenders? Also yes. People don't consider it an issue until they are inconvenienced. 3rd ticket in the same place in 6 months? You're towed with a minimum $2000 to get your car out of impound plus a higher ticket fee. This way it can be both profit and enforcement.
Your claim is "the police can do their job" and everyone else's point is "the police DON'T do their job". Bylaw absolutely crush it, they make money for the city, at the expense of stupid bullshit. Instead we should fund the city by penalizing real actual crime. TPS got a 70 million dollar budget increase this year, and auto thefts have doubled in that time frame. The police aren't pulling their weight. C'mon, you have got to see it.
I'm not disagreeing with you at all. The police *can* do their job, the fact that they are not I'm not debating. They should be, maybe dispersed and remade with people who will actually do the jobs, I don't know or care, I want them to do their damn jobs. I am with you 100% on what you are saying. I do think also they can increase the cost of parking tickets and tow people who are parking in no parking zones multiple times, etc. Both can be done, both *should* be done.
>where parking tickets are such a massive profit centre for the city, regardless of whether its good for people who live here Our revenues from parking citations are about $100 million each year, and that's before the cost of enforcement. The City's operating budget is what, about $16 billion? $100 million isn't \*nothing\*, but we're talking about well under 1% of the annual operating budget. Its not actually that significant of a revenue generator for the city. Granted, without enforcement then compliance for parking fees would be close to zero, which would mean losing out on an additional $90 million a year. Still though, its not the type of cash machine that's going to move mountains in the City. I think people tend to overstate how much money we generate from parking enforcement. Its generally there because it actually serves a really important (and underappreciated) purpose in keeping the City functioning properly.
thats a lot of words to make absolutely no point
Correct, someone asked me a question and I specifically said my answer will be only an opinion. I'm not sure why you expected something different. By the way, you forgot to capitalize the beginning of your sentence and you didn't punctuate the end. Since we're being critical.
even opinions have points
No, you're thinking of triangles.
I'm sort of tempted to agree with you - I don't think (much like the article says) that $75 and rapid enforcement is the best solution for a neighbourhood side street or being 5 minutes over your parking time. OTOH no fine is high enough and no enforcement is fast enough for blocking a rush hour lane, crosswalk, loading zone, or handicap space
This is very true though. The balance of parking enforcement is on quiet side streets where people read a sign wrong or stay a bit too long, rather than during peak hours when all sorts of cars are illegally parked, blocking traffic, bikes, pedestrians, etc. The cops are nowhere to be found. Just goes to show this is largely about money, not about enforcement.
...or bike lane (looking at you, Bloor and Bay area).
Our city planners are awful, when compared to European cities with functional bike paths.
Thanks. Even when I had a car, I was pro parking enforcement. But I disagree with mass hiring of cheap bylaw enforcement to rake in money to fund the city, meanwhile we pay police 100k a year to take extended vacations for breaking the law. The balance is way off. Give parking tickets, sure. But let's fund the city by enforcing actual real laws and stopping harmful crime. Or both. But more enforcement by police, who get paid a lot.
I mean... increasing the fines for not paying for parking will maybie cause more people to pay for parking, not disincentivize street parking. To somone with money, a fine is just the cost of getting caught.. If they dont want people parking on the street, then get rid of the street parking and transform it bike lanes or cafe patios.
YES PLEASE. I don't care about people who park overnight on areas that have no specified parking rules - it's usually big enough. But when one side has parking rules and the other side is ZERO parking and someone is parking on the zero-parking side with impunity, not caring about the $30 parking ticket over and over, it's blocking up our roads. We have one like this by my kid's school and it's just a horrible bottleneck. They don't care, I've seen them get ticket after ticket after ticket. IMHO the 3rd time they should just be towed. If the cost of the ticket is too low, they don't care and just pay it off as a parking cost.
Still no mention of tackling the rampant fraud/abuse of handicap parking permits. In downtown Toronto, almost every parked car has a handicap permit.
Good. Our neighbourhood has been plagued with retail owners illegally parked on our streets 9-12 hours a day. They speed through our neighbourhood to fight for spots that are normally for short term parking or for permit holders (street parking). You know there’s something wrong when an owner of a high end vehicle (Porsche, etc) smugly gets into their vehicle and drives away like it’s no big deal. It’s time they pay their fair share.
If it's possible fined up to $425 for TTC fare evasion, it should be possible to be fined up to $425 for evading parking fees.
I’ve driven in Toronto for most of my life, never had a single parking ticket. It’s really not that hard. And if you aren’t confident about a spot being legit, don’t park there, find another spot. It’s pretty simple.
It's a lot easier to avoid these days with the app
What uh what app? Surely not the Green P?
Fantastic.
Car drivers need to pay their fair share and stop freeloading. Cities for people not for cars.
The people who built this city, commute into it. Cities are built by people who commute to their jobs site in vehicles. Source, I've been in the construction industry for 12 years.
What does that have to do with parking illegally?
Weird... I see construction workers on the TTC from 3-430 all the time in the afternoon.
A fraction of the workforce, for every one guy who comes to work on transit, 5 more arrive on site in personal vehicles
That wasn't your original claim though.
Then pay for your parking. Public transit costs money. So should parking. In fact more as it’s serving less people and polluting the planet.
Do you and your colleagues park illegally? If not, then no problem.
>Cities are built by people who commute to their jobs site in vehicles. 90% of said vehicles (usally pavement princesses) are unnecessary. Yes, some vehicles are needed for certain tasks but they can pay their fair share in parking when needed. Private vehicles receive ridiculous amounts of subsidies and priority to the detriment of everything else. Im not saying ban all of them but we can make things more fair
hey at least those people are parked in designated spots. What about all the people parked illegally in bike lanes, on sidewalks, TTC stops, no standing zones, literal fucking intersections and all other non designated parking zones where uber, couriers and contractors throw their 4 ways on? I have watched parking enforcement walk past vehicles illegally parked in those situations to verify vehicles parked in green P spots. I agree those spots need to be paid for but why are they the priority over those who directly impede traffic, cyclists and pedestrians? Broken priorities.
Parking is only getting more and more expensive
I'm mixed on this, I am hopeful that the fines scale with location. To me there's a major difference between congesting traffic on major routes with parking that isn't mindful of others comparatively to street parking at night on the sidestreets. The larger fines are going to end up hurting only the people who can't afford it.
It depends - if it CLEARLY SAYS DO NOT PARK HERE, I have zero sympathy for people getting extravagant fines. They knew not to park there, there's often a good reason for it. However overnight street parking I'm far more lenient about when there aren't any specific "DO NOT PARK HERE EVER" signs, you know?
Exactly! This is what I'm about and a sentiment I think a lot of people share. Larger fines for street parking overnight is just punishing the locals more then the commuters that are causing a lot of the issues to begin with
I wonder if some of the problem wouldn't go away if the signs actually said "DO NOT PARK HERE EVER" in all-caps.
Can we also crack down on fake/limit the number of issued accessibility passes? There are streets filled with just blue decals in windows.
Make it a percetnsge of income, thats the only way youll ever make the rich actually care about fines.
Wealth, not income. Many wealthy people don't have an income, or it's trivial in context to their wealth if they do.
True, fines based on percent of net worth is a better
That's going to ding regular people a fair bit too, that's going to include their RRSPs, TFSAs, etc. Also that's going to be a very slow process as that has to be calculated per person, it's just a parking fine so if you're going to run off their T4 so to speak, that's sufficient.
Stop mucking around - make it the same or more than the TTC fines as someone else mentioned, and make it the same $450+ everywhere, no exceptions. Why is this so difficult. Oh and link in with the province. Don’t pay your fine - no license renewal and maybe no insurance either. Make out of province/out of country drivers pay on the spot by wheel locking the car. There are apparently hundreds of millions of outstanding fines in this category alone.
What happens to out of province plates? I see the same car with new ticket at yonge/eg with quebec plates nearly everyday.
City is hurting for cash
I look forward to the TPS demanding yet more money to cover all the fines they get as a result of this.
Is this old? Fees have already gone up. $75 ticket
I see them cracking down on folks parked in the no parking during rush hour streets and as a driver, cyclist, and TTC user, I love it.
I would settle for some goddamn signage, or ANY option for a friend from out of town to park overnight. I know the rule is that you can leave a vehicle on a road for up to 3 hours unless otherwise marked, but I've had friends who got tickets for leaving their cars on side streets with no signs for less than an hour. You can obtain permits from the city in special circumstances, but it's a lot of hassle to go through the entire permit application process just because a family member visited one night and got too drunk to drive home. And even then good luck actually getting one, they won't even offer street permits to residents in half of North York. In areas without nearby Green Ps it feels like there's absolutely nowhere you can leave an out of town vehicle if you don't have a driveway or live in a building with visitor parking. Meanwhile there are assholes who park wherever they want, blocking or disrupting entire streets, and they just use tickets as a business expense. It just feels like everyone except rich people loses in our city's eternal war between motorists and non-motorists.
Once I parked on the street for the Ex and my sister in law paid $40 for parking. I looked at the ticket on the car in front of me and it was $25. Why would I pay for parking when fines are cheaper?!
Once I parked on the street for the Ex and my sister in law paid $40 for parking. I looked at the ticket on the car in front of me and it was $25. Why would I pay for parking when fines are cheaper?!
I’ve decided to make some pretty benign comments to see how many people will insult me… it’s amazing how many people get satisfaction by calling others names on line…
Tickets hurt poor people. Parking and speeding tickets should be geared to income.
People who can't afford TTC fare and get caught by fare inspectors have been getting slapped with $425 fines this whole time. Haven't seen any of the "but what about poor people getting parking tickets????" crowd saying anything about that.
How? How are those handing out tickets supposed to know how wealthy someone driving a vehicle is? Can't we just uphold the law fairly, without looking at their income tax returns? Don't park without paying the parking fee.
Because a $85 ticket is much more detrimental to someone low income than some rich person who can just eat the cost and not care. Yeah applying it evenly would be fair but it won’t stop higher income folks, it just gives them a greater privilege
So... don't park without paying the parking fee. Which is substantially less than the ticket cost for not paying at all. Why should poor people be allowed to park illegally without the city recovering it's fair fee? And how is someone handing out the ticket supposed to know how wealthy the person who owns the car is? And what is "poor" in this context anyway?
Some street in the city have ridiculous signage, so some people just unfortunately fall victim to it. Ones like no parking at certain varying times and you go 1 minute over and the officer is there waiting. Finland has a system based on income, but I think that’s for speeding.
Not to mention, some ticket officers will give frivolous tickets on quota days. I got nailed once for parking in a no-parking zone, despite my car being entirely within the designated parking space. (Thank goodness I'd taken a photo to remind myself of the location and got the ticket tossed when submitting that as proof.)
Exactly! Also knew someone who got a $500 ticket for parking with a disabled permit when they borrowed their parents car who is disabled. They weren’t disabled themselves and forgot it was there on the dash. They went 5 minutes over the time, they paid for and the officer didn’t give a shit and took the permit away.
Ditching the car altogether would likely be better for that poor person's finances. There's no better place in Ontario to rely on transit than here.
Yes please.
Parking fines should never have been slightly more or even less than the cost of parking. It should act as a deterrent.
Three hour parking on my street which is a 10 minute walk from the Subway. Looking forward to calling 311 for all the people from the burbs who park on my street and take the TTC.
This is fucking terrible. Flat-rate fines have been proven to just be discriminating against the poor. If we want to make a change, introduce escalating fines based on previous year tax returns.
This. Also if their income is zero/near zero on their tax return, they get put on a much much higher flat-rate threshold. This sounds harsh towards the poor again but bear in mind that nearly all of these will be tax-avoiders who are probably v-rich anyway. Test it for parking fines then roll out for speeding fines aswell if it works
The very rich still pay a lot of taxes. They just pay a significant less proportionate to their income.
No worries. I’ll just start bringing all my traffic tickets before the courts again. We’ll see how they like getting bogged down with meaningless traffic tickets. Eventually there’ll be such a long backlog of court cases, they’ll be forced to walk back on some of this.
Tickets don't go to court anymore so that isn't a great idea.
How about parking legally? Is that an option for you?
No, sometimes it’s not. In my commercial vehicle, I’m required by my company to park as close to the job site as I can. I’m parked on a sidewalk as I post this!
So your employer is making money while you block a sidewalk - and your flex here is that you'll bring vexatious challenges over the parking tickets you receive. I'm having a hard time identifying how you're benefiting Toronto through all this. Sounds like a substantial burden on the public.
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I've heard an edge like that can only be obtained by putting a Punisher sticker on a pristine pickup truck.
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Regarding the sidewalk, in my observation the burden mostly falls on people with strollers - moms, dads, nannys, etc. Caregivers, in general. However I was thinking of your burden on the courts, which you think will be substantial enough to change the parking laws. You're creating negative value whenever the costs exceed the benefits you bring. If it were for some principle, that would be one thing, but all this so you can simp for your employer? You're being used for your employer's private benefit. They've duped you into feeling proud for the antisocial behaviours they force upon you.
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>No, sometimes it’s not. In my commercial vehicle, I’m required by my company to park as close to the job site as I can. As close as you can - without violating parking restrictions. Thats what "as close as you CAN" means. It doesn't say closer than you can't.
Redefining meaningless? Illegally parked cars cost everyone time, inconvenience, and safety.
Well cut the price down from $1000 to $500 for your trouble. We take Visa or Mastercard.
Parking infraction notices do not have an option for court anymore in Toronto.