City eyes $150 parking fines
Council to vote next month on stiff penalty hikes for blocking bike lanes, rush hour parking in busy streets
Flashing an embarrassed grin, Peter Williams insisted he needed to pop into the University of Toronto Health Sciences building “for maybe two min- utes.” So he had cranked the wheel of his Dakota pickup and parked directly in front, blocking the bike lane on bustling College St. Wednesday afternoon.
If caught today, Williams and fellow road hogs who park in bike lanes or on busy streets during rush hour face a $40 to $60 ticket, depending on the zone.
But they could soon be slapped with a $150 ticket, a steep fine that would be among the toughest in North America — and make Williams think twice about parking illegally.
“It would teach you a lesson,” he said.
“I guess maybe it’s a good thing.”
Aiming to alleviate Toronto’s notorious gridlock problem, the city’s public works committee voted 3-2 Wednesday in favour of hiking the fine for motorists, including couriers, who park in bike lanes or on busy streets at rush hour.
The motion, which goes before city council next month, has united Mayor Rob Ford’s administration and some critics on council’s left. Works chair Councillor Denzil Minnan-wong noted that reducing traffic congestion is among Ford’s four main priorities. Committee members agreed parking enforcement officers currently don’t tag enough offenders. Some say ticket-issuing targets push them toward expired meters and side streets with multiple offenders, rather than single vehicles that actually block traffic.
Minnan-wong said he expects city staff “to be making sure the police are partners with us, understanding that congestion and gridlock are real issues for the city. . . . I recognize there may not have been very much progress in the past. We have to move forward, and if there is a logjam to break, we have to break it.”
Keeping traffic moving is more important than revenues, he added.
Const. Wendy Drummond said parking officers routinely check rush-hour routes, but trying to catch offenders is “a bit of a cat-andmouse game.”
“There’s no numbers or statistics to support the comment that we’re being ineffective,” Drummond said. But she added that police are work- ing with the city to heighten public awareness of the parking problem and to find new ways to lessen the need for constant police patrols. Councillor Mike Layton, a staunch Ford critic who first proposed, with colleague Josh Matlow, that the fines be jacked up to $500, called city staff’s $150 proposal a reasonable compromise. The fines should be part of a coor- dinated strategy that emphasizes other ways, including public transit, of getting people around the city quickly and safely, said Layton, an avid cyclist. “I think that, especially what’s going on in city hall regarding removing bike lanes, anything to encourage the validity of them is important,” said cyclist Anthony Greenberg, who moments before had pedaled around a car parked in a College St. bike lane. Statistics Canada reported in August that Toronto again has the worst commute in the country, averaging 29 minutes by car and 49 minutes by public transit. The Toronto Board of Trade ranked the GTA dead last in its survey of North American commutes, saying that having an average 80minute round trip costs the region $6 billion in lost productivity. Councillor John Parker, a Ford ally on the committee, argued that higher fines without real enforcement amount to “largely a feelgood measure.” David Shiner, another conservative, went further, calling the vote “a do-nothing.” Shiner wants to give parking officers authority to put an immobilizing “boot” on vehicles, including commercial deliveries, to hold them until a tow truck comes.
“Surprise, surprise, those couriers wouldn’t park, those people who dropped in for a latte wouldn’t park, those people that were going to drop off and pay the bill at a video store wouldn’t park” illegally, he predicted.
Couriers and other businesses, including paper-shredding trucks whose drivers the Star spotted parked illegally Wednesday, said tickets are a daily reality.
“We get parking tickets every day, pretty much — five, six or maybe more,” said Khalid Razazada, driving a massive Shred-it truck parked in a bike lane at the MARS building on College St. for over an hour. His company pays the tickets because there’s nowhere else to park.
“We’re kind of told it’s the cost of doing business,” said David Crawford, a driver for another shredding company. “I don’t know how much this would affect them, but I’m sure if it goes from 40 bucks to $150, they’d start to possibly look into other things.”
The committee sent a related proposal — for a system letting courier and delivery companies buy permits to park in no-parking zones for up to 30 minutes outside of rush hour — back to staff.