Parking tickets are terrible, but soon there could be a relief for those expensive tickets.
According to LAist, the L.A. City Council has moved forward with some serious consideration of significant reform to the way our city handles parking violations. A report claims that L.A. Department of Transportation (LADOT), is reducing the cost of both street sweeping and overstayed meter tickets by $10.
Where these fines are currently $73 and $63 respectively, the LADOT report suggests reducing the fine for street sweeping violations to $63, and the fine for missing a meter payment to $53. These values would bring fines in the City of Los Angeles to concurrence with those in neighboring cities. Expired meter fines in Los Angeles are higher than those in Santa Monica, West Hollywood and even Beverly Hills.
The LADOT report includes other proposals as well, including a potential tiered fine system that would have broadly lower fines for first-time violators, eventually increasing those fines if folks repeatedly break parking law (e.g. forget to move their car for street sweeping). Also on the list is a payment plan system that would break payment of fines into three, supposedly more manageable, installments of $20 to $30. If the fine can’t be paid, then L.A. would, hypothetically, allow time spent doing community service as a substitute for a $73 fine.
Each year, 2.6 million parking citations are issued in the city of Los Angeles alone.
