Fines could increase for residential parking bans after snowstorms

Leaving your vehicle on a Winnipeg street when the city is poised to clear the snow may cost you more money, and the ticket won't be on the windshield but sent in the mail.

The goal, according to a report to the city's infrastructure and public works committee, is to make snow clearing more efficient — not raise more revenues.

The changes would see parking fines go up from $150 to $200 — or $112.50 to $150 if the owner of the vehicle uses the early payment discount rate after getting ticketed in a snow clearing zone.

"Approval of the recommended amendment ... would increase the fine amount, thus deterring vehicle owners from parking or stopping in a snow clearing zone during a residential parking ban (RPB). These increases will also assist with cost recovery for the expenditures incurred by the city in 'courtesy towing' those vehicles parked in contravention of RPBs," the report said.

The city has seen a significant increase in the number of courtesy tows during the parking bans — from 2,947 tows in 2018 to 7,851 tows in 2020. Last winter there were 12,196 courtesy tows performed during a parking ban in January.

The average cost of a courtesy tow is approximately $40. 

The fines may move toward a vote at city council through a recommendation by the infrastructure committee, but its chair, St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard, wants that decision moved to the budget process for consideration at that level.

"Presumably there will be a budget impact to this fine going up, all things being equal, so in terms of all of the fines and the levers available to the city government to balance the books, I think this should be one of the many considerations as we make really tough decisions with the budget," Allard told CBC News. 

Allard was not sure raising the fines would have the impact of convincing drivers to move their cars following a dump of snow.

"I think fines are a deterrent, but I'm not sure of the difference between and $150 and $200 will make a big difference for most Winnipeggers I know, anyway," Allard said.

The number of tickets issued during a parking ban has steadily risen in recent years.  

Automated service to process tickets faster  

No matter what the fine, the city is poised to make it a lot easier to ticket vehicles during the parking bans. The public service has recommended the city adopt automated licence plate recognition (ALPR).

Under the current system, ticketing officers manually collect information for a fine, print it and and place it on the vehicle's windshield.

ALPR systems automatically collect licence plate information and mail the ticket to the vehicle owner.

The system has been in use in the city by the Winnipeg Police Service and the Parking Authority for some time, but not under the proposed circumstances for enforcing the residential parking ban.

The city has already been slowly moving away from leaving printed tickets on windshields to mailing them out instead. 

• Winnipeg police launch licence plate recognition system
• Ticket's in the mail: Winnipeg testing postal delivery of snow route parking tickets

Allard thinks there is a good chance the more efficient way of ticketing will mean more tickets and gradually fewer cars in the way of the plows.

"The hope is behaviour will change. You can see there has been a rise in non-compliance — that means our streets are becoming more and more difficult to plow and it is becoming more expensive to plow them," Allard said. 

Allard will make motions to move the fines to the budget process, but also to increase "visible but not regulatory signage" prior to when plowing will occurs.  He also wants the Parking Authority to make it clear it won't be issuing fines after a plow has passed on a street.

The report also recommends adding what are called Priority 3 streets adjacent to schools to the list of routes covered by the snow route parking ban; these are currently not subject to parking restrictions during snow clearing operations.

"This lack of parking restriction makes snow clearing operations on [Priority 3] streets inefficient, and leads to improper snow removal where parked vehicles are located," the report said. 

Including those 92 kilometres of streets into the priority 3 snow clearing operation is estimated to cost $100,000 per year.