Here's What You Could Be Paying For Street Cleaning Tickets

Curbed Los Angeles

Tuesday May 08, 2012

Here's What You Could Be Paying For Street Cleaning Tickets

By Adrian Glick Kudler

Mayor Villaraigosa's latest proposed budget makes yet another attempt to cover the city's broke ass with parking fine hikes, most notably in the dread street sweeping category. As the LA Times points out, the fines are pretty regressive (more of a hardship on the poor), and Larry Gross of the Coalition for Economic Survival tells the paper that they'll "disproportionately affect working-class families in Koreatown, Westlake and other neighborhoods packed with apartment buildings and too few parking spaces." (See here for more on the many crazy numbers involved in LA's parking and parking fines.) Here're the proposed new fines and a look at how they compare both to the past and to other cities nearby:

-- Street sweeping would go up to $78--that's the sixth hike in seventh years for a 73% increase since 2005.
-- Parking in a red zone would go up to $98.
-- Parking too close to a hydrant would go to $73.
-- Parking in a fire lane would hit $68.
-- The city collected $134 million in parking fines last year, one-third of which were for street cleaning--it's expected to pull in $150 million this year.
-- Still, the number of tickets has decreased--it was at 3.2 million six years ago and is expected to be at 2.5 million this year.
-- How do other cities do it? Torrance/El Segundo fine for street sweeping: $43. Pasadena: $46.50. South Pas/Malibu/Rancho Palos Verdes: no street cleaning tickets.

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