Some Toronto parking fines are more than doubling today. Here’s what you need to know

Toronto city council approved increasing parking ticket fines in some areas of the city in October.

thestar.com
Dec. 4, 2023

Toronto drivers hoping to get away with parking illegally should be prepared to pay more as new fines for certain parking violations have more than doubled on Friday.

Drivers will now have to pay $75, instead of $30, for parking illegally on city- and privately-owned property at thousands of locations across the city, including at TTC stations, Exhibition Place and commercial lots. The increased fine now matches the fine for unpaid parking in Green P lots.

“If it’s cheaper for you to get fined rather than paying it makes no sense,” Mayor Olivia Chow said on Friday morning. “There is a city council decision that is long overdue.”

Chow added that the city is continuing to discuss higher parking rates as well.

“I’m pushing for more cameras ... I’m looking at traffic wardens ... you’ll see more and more of them to catch bad behaviour and ease congestion,” she said, and underscored that people breaking traffic and parking laws should be fined.

Fines at curbside spots remain at $30, as it has for more than a decade, and the fine for parking in a designated bike lane remains at $150.

City council approved the move in October after a report showed “many instances” of drivers “taking their chances with incurring a parking violation notice” rather than paying for parking up front.

Coun. Paul Ainslie from Ward 24, Scarborough Guildwood, said earlier in September that the harsher fine is fair and on par with fees imposed by neighbouring municipalities.

Ten to 15 per cent of drivers don’t pay for parking on regular days at Exhibition Place, according to its CEO Dan Boyle. In September, when council was still considering increasing the fine, said the $30 ticket was “outdated.”

During council’s deliberations, city staff emphasized the new fine was meant to encourage compliance with parking rules, and did not estimate how much additional revenue the $45 bump would generate.

Last year the number of parking violation notices in city lots increased to over 106,000 from the almost 95,000 in 2021, while violations in private lots jumped to about 377,000 from about 320,000 the year before, the report stated. In total, police and city bylaw officers issued 1,479,644 parking tickets in 2021 and collected $90.2 million in tickets and fines.

Between 2011 and 2021, Toronto was short more than $27 million in unpaid traffic fines, previous reporting from the Star showed.

Even with the increased fine at $75, TTC transit riders face more than five times that in fines (up to $425) for fare evasion. The TTC resumed its fare evasion ticketing in February --- which had been paused during the pandemic --- to fill a $6 million shortfall.

Coun. Dianne Saxe (Ward 11, University-Rosedale) argued at a September meeting of the city’s infrastructure and environment committee that doling out “piddly fines” for drivers who don’t pay for on-street parking was unfair for TTC users and said the “grossly inadequate” on-street penalties deprived the city of much-needed revenue.