Detroit Loses Money on $30 Parking Tickets – Previously Truth! Now Resolved!

Detroit Loses Money on $30 Parking Tickets – Previously Truth! Now Resolved!

Summary of eRumor:  

Detroit loses $2 on each parking ticket because a parking ticket there costs $30, but it costs Detroit $32 to issue it.

The Truth:

 

It’s true that it once cost Detroit $32 to issue a $30 parking ticket, but city officials have since increased parking ticket rates. 

Reports of Detroit’s parking ticket woes first surfaced in the spring of 2014. Detroit News reported:

“The city is paying $32 to issue and process a $30 parking violation, and it hasn’t adjusted rates since 2001. On top of that, about half of Detroit’s 3,404 parking meters are not operating properly at any given time, says [Emergency Manager Kevyn] Orr’s spokesman, Bill Nowling.”

But that didn’t last for long. By April of 2014, Detroit city officials said they planned to increase parking tickets to $45. The move was expected to add $6 million in revenue each year. The parking ticket increase was included in the city’s bankruptcy disclosure settlement. The city may also take steps to fix busted parking meters and crumbling parking garages, Crain’s Detroit Business reports:

“According to the bankruptcy disclosure statement, the EM is ‘exploring a potential monetization’ of the seven parking garages and 3,404 parking meters owned by the Automobile Parking Fund. The APF is an enterprise fund that technically owns the infrastructure and services the city’s parking bonds; the Parking Violations Bureau writes the tickets and enforces the laws.”

Parking has been an issue for Detroit for a long time. Unlike many other cities, Detroit has an abundance of parking garages, surface lots and meters. City planners once believed that all that parking would make it easier for people to visit the downtown area, but it’s had the opposite effect, the Washington Post reports:

“Part of the problem is that all of this parking, while designed to lure people, ultimately has the impact of making the city less worth visiting in the first place. Why go to downtown Detroit when so much of what you’ll find there is… parking? All of that parking, in turn, creates a perception of safety problems. People hesitate to park three blocks from a restaurant when that means walking past several streets of darkly lit garages and empty lots (as opposed to store fronts and bustling bars).”

So, while Detroit has taken steps to correct its parking ticket prices, parking is still an issue for the city.