Fire hydrant warning signs vanish from University Ave.
We pick up on one citizen’s crusade to save people from needless parking tickets
One of the worst ticket traps in the downtown core has inadvertently been revived, by taking down signs warning drivers to steer clear of it.
In early 2016, we reported on the efforts of lawyer Robert Holland to alert drivers to two fire hydrants on the east side of University Ave., between Queen and Dundas Sts., that are set far back from the curb.
The hydrants are easily overlooked by drivers, which is well-known to parking enforcement officers. Tagging cars parked in front of the hydrants with $100 tickets was like shooting fish in a barrel.
One of the hydrants netted the city $289,620 in ticket revenue from 2008 to 2013, making it one of the most lucrative ticket traps in Toronto.
After Holland’s vehicle was tagged outside the University Ave. courthouse, he went on a crusade to shame the city, standing in front of the hydrants for hours at a time to shoo away hapless drivers. He even enlisted young legal students to patrol the hydrants and set up a website called Ticket Trap Angelsto reinforce that he wasn’t fooling around.
The city finally put up signs on either side of both plugs that showed a black hydrant on a yellow background. The signs were well above the eye level of a person in a car, but it was better than nothing and a tacit admission by the city that people deserved to be warned before they were ticketed.
We thought the problem was solved until last month, when Holland sent us a note saying the warning signs had disappeared.
“Today I discovered that the city has replaced both sets of fire hydrant signs next to the curb with taxi signs,” he said. “Obviously, taxis are now invited to park in front of the hydrants.
“No doubt, vehicles other than taxis will park there when the curb space is empty because there is no explicit no parking sign for regular vehicles.”
We went there and found signs on either side of the hydrants that say one taxi is allowed to park in front of them, along with a small hydrant in the top right-hand corner.
It looks to us like Holland is right; the signs could be confusing and fool drivers into thinking they can park there. They don’t designate the space as a taxi stand, and pay only lip service to the presence of hydrants.
If they had put up the taxi signs on the same posts as the hydrant signs, leaving them in place to warn away drivers, they could have accomplished the same thing with a lot less potential for tickets.
It makes you wonder if they’re pining for the good ol’ days.
STATUS: We asked Allen Pinkerton, who’s in charge of traffic signs and markings, why the changes were made. “The infrastructure management group for transportation services introduced a practice currently in use in other municipalities,” he explained. “With bylaw approval, a taxi can stand in the area immediately opposite the hydrant,” he said, adding he’s not sure how many new mini-stands for taxis have been designated. We also asked Pinkerton why the old signs couldn’t be left up as well. He said he would talk to city staff and see if they could put them back on the posts.