District doubles parking tickets

The District last year issued $99 million worth of parking tickets, twice the amount in 1999 when Mayor Anthony A. Williams took office.

D.C. officials said the increase is a response to public outcry, not an aggressive, money-making initiative.

“In the last several years, at the request of District residents and businesses, the Department of Public Works has tripled the number of parking officers that are charged with monitoring curbside parking,” said agency spokeswoman Mary Myers. “And we have seen that there is plenty of work for them to do.”

Though the number of D.C. ticket writers more than tripled from 75 in 2000 to 235 in 2002, Miss Myers said they are not told to fill a quota.

She also said the total numbers of tickets written has declined since the record high of 2.3 million in 1997.

Such factors as weather or the number of construction projects in the city, Miss Myers said, can alter the number of tickets written. She said the amount of money collected can also fluctuate, depending on how many parking tickets are dismissed or not paid.

The District is not alone in its efforts to fill municipal coffers with revenue from parking tickets.

Recent published reports indicate that revenues derived from parking fluctuate from city to city. The Philadelphia Parking Authority, with 15,000 meters and several garages, collected $114 million last year. Boston collected $65 million. In Baltimore, the total parking revenue was $15 million.

But comparisons among cities depend on a number of factors, including population, land area, the number of licensed drivers, the number of commuter vehicles and the value of parking fines.

Chris Hoene, a research manager with the National League of Cities, said he does not think that city officials try to issue more tickets when times get tight, but that they are aware they can raise revenue by making their agencies more efficient.

“I think what cities do do is crack down on enforcement,” he said.

Mr. Williams is president of the National League of Cities.

Mr. Hoene said the trend toward increasing fines and fees instead of raising taxes to balance city budgets has been around for decades.

“They have been, over the last three decades, extremely important as an alternative revenue to local taxes,” he said. “I think there is a sense after two or three decades that we are getting to the point where people are saying, ‘Look, I’m taxed, I’m fee’d-out.’ ”

Officials for the DPW said the city’s 235 ticket writers wrote 1.6 million parking tickets in each of the past three years. In 1999, the 75 ticket writers wrote just over half that number, 801,573. During that six-year span, fines for the most frequently violated parking laws were increased.

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