There’s a nifty little box on the City of St. Petersburg’s home page that announces the current temperature and three random city factoids that change each time the web page is refreshed. One of those little tidbits is the number of parking citations forgiven — 5,738 as of Wednesday.
That’s a weird piece of data to brag about on a website, right?
So, here’s why someone at the city thought it was a good number to tout on the Internet. St. Pete launched a program way back in 2010 that allowed first-time parking offenders to have their tickets waived if they showed a receipt proving they had spent $25 at a business in the area. If a person was eligible, the citation would come with a notice to the driver about the program.
The program was the brainchild of a collaboration between local business groups and the city in an effort to promote patronage of local businesses. The 5,738 appears to be representative of fiscal years 2013 and 2014. Based on data provided by the city’s director of parking and transportation, Evan Mory, a total of 5,583 parking citations were waived over the course of those two years.
Between the program’s launch in June 2010 and September 2011, there were 2,997 tickets waived.
It’s a lot of tickets, but to put it into perspective take a look at the revenue raked in by the city from parking citations. Last year more than $1.8 million was collected in parking-related fines. That includes parking meters, over-the-limit and no-parking zones and includes citations issued by city employees (you know, the meter maids) and St. Pete Police.
Now, while some fees may be higher and late fees can be assessed increasing the amount of fines collected, most parking tickets are $25. That means there could have been as many as 72,000 tickets issued last year — though the number is likely slightly smaller than that taking into consideration higher fines and late fees. The city did not provide data on total parking tickets issued.
That said, a few thousands tickets taken out of the parking violation revenue stream is pretty much a drop in the bucket – may $70,000 out of the city’s pocket but into the economy.
The amount of money collected due to parking infractions in the city added with those who have taken advantage of the parking ticket amnesty program is shocking. The data isn’t broken down into areas of the city, but it’s a safe bet that most of the infractions occur downtown where there are streets lined with metered or time-limited parking. And golf carts carrying chalk-wielding parking enforcement officers are not an uncommon site at any hour.
Employees who work at downtown establishments have long argued about having to frequently shift cars throughout the day to avoid tickets. And employers urge their workers to park further off site to leave room for patrons in a district where parking, especially at peak times, can be limited.
To accommodate the concerns, the city has a looper trolley that circulates downtown frequently serving as a sort of shuttle between businesses and parking garages. Implementation of a bike share program that could help downtown employees get from car to work for a nominal fee is also in the works.
The city has partnered with the Parkmobile app to allow downtown visitors to pay for parking from their smartphones without having to feed a meter. While feeding a meter repeatedly is OK, the Parkmobile app only allows users to add an additional one-hour to their parking session above the posted time limit – in most areas that is two or three hours. The drawback there is, once that time is up drivers would have to move their cars to an entirely different zone number to re-park. Often that can be several blocks.
Conversely, to avoid over-the-limit fees in timed parking, drivers only need move their vehicles past the nearest intersection to avoid a fine.
And Mory, from the parking and transportation department, said the city recommends anyone staying downtown for a prolonged period utilize one of the city’s parking garages. He reminded those fees can often be far less than what a driver would pay feeding a meter for several hours.
The city also offers free parking during City Council meetings and other public hearings at City Hall in the lot across the street from City Hall.
If you’re a driver who’s already been ticketed by the city, hopefully these are some tips to help avoid another. If you haven’t ever gotten a ticket and plan to go shopping downtown anyway, seems like you could probably skip the meter just that once.
