Toronto parking revenues up as total number of tickets fall

Allowing Toronto drivers to have an extra few minutes to get back to their cars has resulted in fewer parking tickets being issued over the past year, though the city has still seen an increase in overall parking ticketing revenue.

For the last year, police and parking enforcement officers have been honouring a 10-minute grace period after a pay-and-display ticket has expired.

Coun. Paul Ainslie, chair of the city's government management committee, says the system is working.

"I think it's the appropriate thing to do, I think it's responsible. The police are supportive of it, we haven't lost revenue because of it," he told reporters Wednesday. 

As Ainslie points out, the city's overall parking revenues are up even though fewer tickets have been handed out relating to pay-and-display expirations. That outcome is in part due to increased fines for drivers who are blocking traffic during rush hour and also to better enforcement of outstanding fines.

In 2014, the city's total parking-related revenue topped $104.9 million, according to statistics reported by city staff. That was about $15 million more than the $89.8 million collected the year before.

The CBC's Jamie Strashin explains it all in the video above.