Plan would cut parking fines
Other proposals include easing street cleaning restrictions and upgrading meters.
Tickets for most first offenses would be slashed to $23, one of many ideas floated by a working group.
a new proposal to reform parking in Los Angeles, many parking tickets would cost only $23 — a fraction of the existing fines for common violations.
The idea is one in a long list of suggestions put forward publicly for the first time Thursday by a working group convened by Mayor Eric Garcetti, which has been combing through parking policies since June.
The effort was spurred, in part, by the Los Angeles Parking Freedom Initiative, an activist group that argues that L.A. has improperly used parking fines to solve budget problems and maximize revenue rather than ease parking problems. The initiative had been planning to put its reforms — including capping many fines at $23 — on the ballot before it announced that it was teaming up with Garcetti through the working group.
Participants in the working group have included Parking Freedom Initiative members Steven Vincent and Jay Beeber, as well as representatives from business groups, several neighborhood councils and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.
In a recently released report, the working group recommended that Los Angeles slash fines for parking violations that don’t affect public safety to $23 for the first offense, $33 for the second offense of the same kind in the same year, and up to $68 on the fourth offense.
Many such violations now cost drivers more than twice as much: $73 for parking in a prohibited area during street cleaning, for intions stance. The group said it pegged the fine at $23 to match the median hourly wage in Los Angeles reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The working group also wants Los Angeles to expand the use of technologically advanced parking meters that adjust pricing depending on demand, let drivers pay for more time remotely using a smartphone app and charge people only for the time they use. It suggested a host of changes to the city’s street cleaning system to help cut down on parking citations.
The group also wants parking fines to go into a special account dedicated to parking management and streetscape services, including bicycle parking and sidewalks.
“We have effectively put this issue on the front burner for the city of Los Angeles,” Vincent, director of the Parking Freedom Initiative, said Friday. “The issue isn’t whether or not there’s going to be change in the parking system — it’s what those changes are going to be and how they’re going to be accomplished.”
The working group presented its recommendaUnder to a city commission Thursday. Many of the proposed reforms require approval by city lawmakers, and some could be a tough sell with lawmakers worried about their financial effect, said Beeber, a recent City Council candidate. City revenue from parking tickets has swelled from nearly $110 million in 2003 to about $161 million last year, according to the mayor’s last budget.
Beeber argued that fairer fines would do something “unquantifiable”: restore public trust. “When the public feels the only thing the city is trying to do is get a couple of extra bucks out of them, they’re not going to be so willing when the city tries to raise taxes,” Beeber said.
The mayor has yet to weigh in publicly on the recommendations. Garcetti spokeswoman Vicki Curry said that in addition to convening the working group, the mayor had launched several initiatives to ease parking problems, including testing new kinds of parking signs and adopting a policy to allow parking when street sweeping is canceled.