Parking Problems in Toronto

It was recently announced that the City of Toronto and the Toronto Police issued less parking/traffic tickets in 2014 than they had in 2013. When the original findings came out in December, it was estimated that the City would lose out on roughly $30 million in revenue. Motorists were issued roughly 132,000 less tickets than they had the year before; five per cent less than previous years. The amount of tickets given out each year has decreased steadily since 2008. However the reduction in tickets did not equate to a reduction in revenue like first believed.

With traffic ticket revenue down by $30M, finger pointing (at Toronto Police Service) starts http://t.co/hsxY7ebLM6 pic.twitter.com/2mkzsAMghl
— National Post (@nationalpost) December 6, 2014

According to a report by Metro News Toronto, the City has been earned more money from less tickets. How much more you ask? $15.1 million more, Total ticket revenue last year jumped to $104,954,929 from $89,838,566. The City has increased the fines on parking violations and created a fixed-fine system that prevents people from negotiating for  a reduced penalty which has lead to the increase in the cities revenue. The City believes that having higher fines will increase the likelihood of people complying with the parking laws.

Toronto issued fewer parking tickets in 2014 but new rules led to $15.1 million more in fines http://t.co/dfXDwovGUY pic.twitter.com/18xZy1WqLJ
— Metro Toronto (@metrotoronto) April 8, 2015

Sure, the tax dollars are great because it gives the city more money to spend on services but wouldn't you rather have that money in your pocket? Also, you would probably spend less money parking legally than you would in fines, so why not do that? Maybe because you don't know where you would do that or maybe you don't know how much it would cost to do that.

That's where I come in. I have created a chart that outlines the set fines for certain violations as well as where these violations have occurred so people can know where they need to be careful and show them how much it'll cost them for breaking the rules.



This link will let you see a summary of the data.

I have also listed a map that shows all the municipal parking lots in the city and a link that shows how much each parking lot's hourly charge is.