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Parking Enforcement Extortion in Leslieville!

I'm having some difficulty having my concerns heard by Mayor David Miller or my city ward councillor, so I thought this story might be of interest to someone who might be able to help.

I am a taxpaying, law abiding Toronto citizen. Like most city folk, I own a house that has no parking. I recently purchased a parking permit for $150.00 for my area (8D) and have it displayed correctly in my car window. I live on Dundas St. E where there are no signs re. parking restrictions.

For the past 2 evenings I have received $15 parking tickets for being parked in one spot for more than 3 hours. As I'm sure you are aware, permits overrule the 3 hour rule because if they didn't, what would be the purpose of paying $150 for a permit? Of course my car will be parked for longer than 3 hours....it is my home, where I live and I am allowed to park my car at my home with the proper permit.

I have quoted the City of Toronto Permit Holders website:

"Though subject to other existing traffic regulations, permit holders generally have the privilege of parking their vehicles overnight and are exempt from the 1, 2, and 3 hour parking restrictions."
http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/onstreet/index.htm#restrict

Now as a result of Parking Enforcement's inability to understand or follow their own rules, I must go to court, waste my time (only one civic centre in the whole city of Toronto is processing court requests at this time due to the strike), and waste taxpayers' money by fighting to have Parking Enforcement recognize their error. Even going to court, I'm not sure how to guarantee that all Parking Enforcement persons will know to follow the rules and not ticket me in the future.

It seems like a losing battle for me. And I'm sure that is why they ticket. They know it's much harder for people to fight these tickets than pay the $15. I refuse to do this. I am teacher and I have the summer off. I will take this to the highest level and keep fighting the good fight regardless of how pointless it seems.

Parking Enforcement in the city is out of control and they are driving Torontonians out of the city and into the suburbs which contributes to the massive traffic and pollution problem we have in this city.

If there are any suggestions you can make in terms of how to resolve this or who to contact that will actually listen to me, please help!

Thanks!
Jenny

Tags: Help!, Parking

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Permalink Reply by Nolin (Admin) on July 6, 2009 at 11:35am

Hi Jenny,

I can appreciate your frustration. Sometimes, getting a response from a live person at City Hall can be challenging. I would suggest emailing and phoning as many relevant addresses and phone numbers as you can find: Councillor Fletcher's office, Paula herself, the Parking Administration folks, etc. Even when they don't reply to you, they will often forward your message to the relevant person or department, and internal referrals are more likely to go to the right place where a response will be pending.

Good luck!

Nolin

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Permalink Reply by Egg Flik on July 7, 2009 at 2:26am

Talk to Paula Fletcher.

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Permalink Reply by Chris B on July 7, 2009 at 10:02am

That is crap. Problem is that parking tickets are a key source of revenue for the city, thanks to years of bad management, so these enforcement guys have quotas to meet. This is counterintuitive naturally, since if the goal is the reduce illegal parking, then ideally, you want your parking ticket revenue to keep going down, since this should theoretically mean that there's higher compliance with parking restrictions, but we all know that's not the case - Its a cash grab

If you have the time, you should definitely fight it, but also follow-up with Paula Fletcher. That's what a local councillor is there for. That said, you'll probably have to be persistent with her office - they're not always super-responsive.

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Permalink Reply by Nolin (Admin) on July 7, 2009 at 10:36am

What I find funny about the parking ticket revenue situation in Toronto is that they're actually not even setting court dates for many people who file to dispute charges. There were articles in the city papers (National Post, Toronto Star, etc.) last year about how the City is so far behind on court dates that they're essentially doing triage on the dispute filings to book frequent offenders and large potential wins, letting the other requests sit dormant. I had a couple of tickets against my Vespa that I disputed, and still have yet to receive a court date 2 years later.

So yes, it's a big source of revenue. However, the lion's share of that revenue comes from people who just pay because they think it's the easier, faster way out. If you file to dispute (which takes about an hour or so out of your business day) you may not even end up going to court. There was talk in the Fall about 6 new courtrooms opening, but I can't imagine parking ticket disputes are at the top of the priorities list.

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Permalink Reply by Egg Flik on July 7, 2009 at 11:22am

As a funny note, I always like to remind the parking enforcement drones that they can't park where they do, by yelling it out my window. As much as it's not their fault, fair is fair.

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Permalink Reply by Jenny on July 7, 2009 at 11:35am

So I did contact Paula Fletcher's office and they did get back to me quite promptly.

Here's what came of it: I was given an 8D permit map when I bought my permit and the boundary was along my section of Dundas St. East. I assumed, that the boundary line was included in the area where the permit applied. Because there are no signs on Dundas, I did my research and found out that when there are no signs, the 3hr rule doesn't apply to permit holders. Well, my assumption that the boundary, Dundas, was part of 8D was wrong. For some reason, no one, including a tax-paying, law-abiding, permit holding Dundas St. home owner is allowed to park along Dundas for longer than 3 hours.

So I will park on a side street close-by, which is not a problem, just annoying that there is ALWAYS some kind of ticketing loophole where they are justified in ticketing everything. I did take the tickets to the office and submitted them for trial, so we'll see if I ever get called. I also left a nasty note in my windshield alongside my permit for every ticketer to see. And I will also yell at them when they are illegally parked. Perhaps I may go as far as to give them a citizen's ticket for ruining people's days.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions!

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Permalink Reply by Nolin (Admin) on July 7, 2009 at 12:06pm

me too! sometimes i even take their picture with my phone to make them feel a little more sheepish. i'm sure they don't care, but it makes me feel a bit better. :)

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Permalink Reply by Laura Rey on July 7, 2009 at 12:11pm

Hi Jenny,

We live on Dundas as well and it is extremely irritating that our street isn't included in the permit area.

Laura

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Permalink Reply by MP on July 7, 2009 at 5:17pm

That is a load of crap about Dundas. Brother. On another note, a friend of mine who has a parking sticker and lives on Ashdale was given a ticket - her permit was prominently displayed - her ticket said otherwise. Yes, she is fighting it. And on the look out for the parking enforcement officer to give him a piece of her mind (LOL).

As an added frustration, I find it interesting that there always is someone parked at the edge of Dundas and my street (Alton) so close to the corner that I'm sure one day I will be hit by a driver going east on Dundas while I'm trying to see if the way is clear for me to actually exit my street. I know there are markings for the cars to park that close to the corner, but I do seem to recall many years ago that a car could not be parked closer than say 10 feet/metres (I don't recall the distance) from the corner. And it always seems to be a van or SUV that is parked there. And I know my street is not unique - Leslie, Curzon, etc. etc. have the same problem.

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Permalink Reply by The Mason on July 7, 2009 at 8:13pm

I can understand your frustrations Jenny and subsequent commenters...more than a half-dozen times we have received tickets that could be borderline or sat in absolute amazement and confusion staring a a pole lined with four or five separate parking signs trying to determine the restrictions. As one who has been on a civic board (not here) and in the spirit of vibrant discussion invoking continued neighbourhood involvement, I have a few questions.

1) As a special parking permit holder, think about how many times you've searched for a parking spot passing many un-permitted vehicles and screaming for better parking enforcement. Can you then complain another day about getting a ticket and blame it on quotas and a revenue source for our city?
2) Would you rather a parking enforcement vehicle (or police cruiser or utility vehicle, etc.) take up a rare, legal parking spot knowing that they will only be there a very short time or give them slack for parking illegally while you use that spot they would have taken.
3) Why does it seem to me that every time someone comments about Councilor Paula Fletcher's being extremely slow or unresponsive it's made with a laissez-faire or 'we just have to deal with it' attitude? The city of Toronto has DOUBLE the number of representatives that the same population receives with half the Provincial representation. We should never just "deal" with slow or absent responses from any Councilor.

I'm sure there are more questions, but I have to go down and contest a couple of parking parking tickets. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Tracy C on July 14, 2009 at 10:08am

Not quite related but I've had situations where I've had a paid parking receipt on the dash and they still give me a ticket. I show up with both at Parking Infractions and they remove it from the system. Apparently, parking receipts must be on the sidewalk side of your car if you read the stupid fine print.