BELLEVUE, Wash. — Bellevue’s transportation department is asking city council members to hike the price for parking violations.
It wants to institute an across-the-board price of $40, since some violations currently cost $23 or $29 while others already cost $40.
“What do you say to residents who look at this and say it’s a money grab?” KIRO 7 asked the city’s traffic engineering manager, Mark Poch.
“We get very little revenue from parking overall in the city,” he said. “This is really about consistency.”
Poch said the courts that handle the tickets just want them all to be the same price because, he said, court officials must manually enter ticket prices other than $40.
Parking beyond two hours in a two-hour zone, for example, would jump from $23 to $40. Parking officers would also be able to ticket violators again every few hours if they don’t move their cars after the first ticket.
Table of Parking Infractions Comparables
“This is something that we want to use as a tool, that we could use with discretion to really get the worse cases cleaned up,” he said.
Erin Dunklee, who parks in the Old Bellevue area for work, said she’s had to take her chances on the street when her parking garage is full.
“Then I’ll have to take a break and find somewhere else to park,” she said, referring to when her two hours are up.
Dunklee admits she’s gotten tickets for going over time but calls the push to increase the violation cost from $23 to $40 “ridiculous.”
“Things happen,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s right.”
Other violations, like parking in a no parking zone, would jump from $29 to $40, and the city would add $40 violations for blocking mailboxes or parking with tabs that have been expired for more than 45 days.
Tickets wouldn't stay at $40, either. Poch wants to make use of city code that pegs the price to inflation and readjusts it every two years. The city established it in 2000, but parking penalties were last adjusted in 2008.
“Maybe $40 would go to $41 or $42,” he said of the change every two years.
Poch expects to bring the proposal to city council in the fall to get its input on what a proper price increase would be. He hopes to have the changes in place in January 2016.
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