No matter what you call it, it's a quota
City leaders always deny that parking control workers---we used to call them "meter maids," but many of them are now guys---have quotas for the number of parking tickets they issue. Today's story in the Examiner puts the lie to the denial---again. (An Examiner story back in January also showed that it was a lie.)
Parking control officers have handed out fewer citations during the past few months---$7.5 million less than expected, to be precise. Officials with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees parking enforcement and the Muni system, said they will try to catch up on the citation-giving so the department---which has raised fares and altered transit service recently to save money---will not end the year with a deficit.
Whether you call issuing more parking tickets "catching up," a "recovery plan," or "meeting projections," motorists in SF are justified in calling it nothing but "a quota":
[Chief Operating Officer]Haley said the agency, which has a total budget of $775 million, will be putting together a recovery plan to see if it can still meet its projections for the year, which would require more tickets to be issued during the next several months than planned.
In fiscal year 2008/2009, the city collected $170,767,615 from parking tickets, parking meters, parking lots, and parking permits.
posted by Rob Anderson @ 4:46 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I think the MTA does a poor job of proactive parking enforcement (i.e. they will come if you call, but never seem to proactively ticket the idiots who park in crosswalks, block sidewalk wheelchair ramps and fire hydrants, etc. And in terms of TRAFFIC enforcement, well, there is pretty much zero traffic enforcement in SF. That's led to today's environment, where drivers think it's fine to zoom through crosswalks mere inches from pedestrians, so long as they don't actually strike them. I'm all for greater enforcement of both parking and traffic laws (on drivers, cyclists, and even pedestrians.)
Yes, instead of city government serving the people, the people of SF are now primarily a source of revenue to support a predatory city government whose main function is a jobs program for the unions.
Oh give me a break. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Whiny motorists.
The only problem with the quota is that the quota is not high enough.
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