Mary wrote to tell me the Dufferin and St.Clair area is the most ticketed in the city. I had my doubts. But the very next day, I got two parking tickets worth $65 each. Mary said a senior she lives with, who has a disabled sticker on his car, was ticketed $400. He parked outside The Stop on Davenport where he eats at the Community Food Centre.
Mary says the 87-year-old can’t pay his rent when he pays those tickets. It’s hard to believe the City would ticket a disabled senior who needs to eat community meals.
But the tickets I got on Thursday were for minor infractions on unofficial drop-off and pick-up spots on the street. One was on Gloucester at Glenholme, where parents pick up and drop off kids at St. Thomas Aquinas school. The other was on Kitchener near Caledonia, beside my mother-in-law’s house, where I pick up my daughter.
The City seems to be on a parking ticket blitz these days. That’s in addition to the speed cameras it’s already added to our area. Why so aggressive with local drivers?
The City’s broke, and it needs money. Higher taxes on every home. Higher charges on tickets for every driver. But what about the big guys? The ones who take up critical traffic lanes to build their condos, for months. They must pay their fair share of tickets too, right? More taxes?
Well. When Doug Ford gave big developers a tax holiday for two years in 2022, it cost Toronto $200 million. Ford eventually reversed his tax-free policy for the big boys after Ontario cities pushed back saying developers would be getting free municipal services while city taxpayers were stuck with the bill.
But Ford never reimbursed Toronto for that money.
Ever since then, the City has been instituting new Green P parking lots, raising parking fees, putting up speed cameras, and to date, has raised $186 million in revenue, appearing to almost make up for the shortfall Doug Ford created.
But that means Mary’s elderly tenant is forced to choose between paying his rent or paying his parking tickets, just because he needs to eat. Or like I told my 6-year-old when I picked her up, I won’t be able to buy her ice cream at the park. The price of that ticket is the same as 13 ice creams.
Maybe we should start eating our parking tickets instead.
Agreed on the parking tickets but wow what an irresponsible leap to blame it all (again) on real estate developers! Open your eyes to the fiscal waste of our city and perhaps you will become less fixated on real estate developers, who create jobs, housing, and a HIGHER base of tax revenue in the future.