SEATTLE — It’s not a contest any Seattle resident is looking to win, but a new study found that Seattle has the eighth highest parking ticket revenue at $20.8 million a year. Not that knowing that makes anyone feel better about their latest one.
The study was conducted by carrentals.com, which pulled city data records for 16 major cities and surveyed over 1,000 drivers across the country, in order to determine the real impact on residents in time and money.
Unsurprisingly, New York ranked at number one with $545 million, followed by Chicago at $264 million and Los Angeles at $148 million.
Will Seattle parking officers still use chalk on car tires?
Police issued around 86,000 Seattle parking tickets in the last six months of 2018. The Seattle Department of Transportation manages approximately 12,000 paid on-street spaces in 20 business districts, according to a recent report.
The carrentals.com study additionally found that the 16 major U.S. cities studied collectively pull in more than $1.4 billion in revenue, with 70 percent of millennials unable to afford paying their parking tickets on time, often waiting 30 to 60 days to pay up.
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The number of paid parking spaces in the city is growing. Seattle manages parking using a “performance pricing” model. In short, the city varies parking prices in different areas of town. In theory, drivers will consider parking prices and move their cars, which in turn will free up spaces for other drivers.
Seattle parking tickets costing residents more than money
We don't simply pay plenty for parking tickets, we spend a lot of time searching for parking spots that we'd likely end up being ticketed for anyway. Seattleites spend approximately 58 hours per driver a year looking for spots, which the study find is costing drivers $1,205 a year in wasted time.
What’s causing all these pesky tickets? Nationally, the most common reasons for citations are street sweeping, expired meters, red zones, preferential parking, no display of receipt, and no parking zones. If it’s not one of those, they’ll probably get you for something else.
MyNorthwest
