City racks up record parking fines
Posted Jan 23, 2011 11:19 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The city ranks near the top in the number of parking tickets handed out per year.
Calgary doled out 281,000 tickets in 2010, over 100,000 more than in Edmonton, which has a similar population.
A record number of tickets also draws in a record amount of money, coming in the form of $14.6 million.
Some Calgarians tell 660News they think handing out tickets is a ploy to get more money.
“Sometimes it’s hard to park, but as far as going after people, I guess it’s kind of a cash grab,” says one man.
“If they’re making more parking tickets for probably the same parking habits, it’s an increased demand for needing to out and ticket people for profit,” says another.
Another man says the Calgary Parking Authority is watching for any opportunity possible.
“I used to work in an industry for a courier express company and we used to get ticketed all the time and they used to target us, in fact.”
Others say the Parking Authority is just doing its job, snagging people double parking or stopping in handicapped zones.
According to a recent study, Calgary is among the top major Canadian cities when it comes to the number of tickets issued per capita and the amount of money they collect.
Toronto leads the pack, bringing in almost $80 million per year in parking fines.
