St. John's parking fines up

Fines for expired meters and parking in spaces for the disabled are increasing dramatically in St. John's.

The city is raising the fine for parking in a blue zone without a permit, from $75 to a maximum of $400.

At Monday’s public meeting, Coun. Sheilagh O'Leary said she'd also like to see better regulation of who is allowed to use such permits.

"People with blue zone permits are giving them to other people and obviously we need tighter regulations around those issues so people who are actually in need are using those permits," she said.

Council is hoping to work with the provincial government to solve that problem.

Meanwhile, tickets for expired parking meters are also going up a whopping 60 per cent in St. John's – from $15 to $25.

The increase is expected to bring in an additional $33,000 per month.

Finance committee chairman Danny Breen says the city needs the money to create more parking spaces.

"If we continue to delay, what's going to happen is we're not going to have sufficient ... we're not going to have enough revenue in the fund to really buy down the capital that we're investing in the parking spaces," he said.

Some councillors voted against the hike.

They argued the fine should remain at $15 until later this year when the people who check parking meters are given equipment that will allow them to gather and transmit information about parking infractions electronically.