Beware of parking in downtown Toronto.

This rant cost me one hour of my precious time, $3.15 for parking, $30.00 for a fine, $2.00 in additional parking to dispute and $0.53 for a stamp for a total of $35.68. All this for 20 minutes of parking!!!

The city of Toronto offers no free parking anywhere in the city core. The parking lots are quite expensive and there are machines on every street where you buy time for short term parking.

The city has a small army of parking enforcers dressed in police uniforms trolling the streets looking for any parking ticket that has expired so they can ticket you. I am sure the city enjoys huge cash revenues from this practice and there are rumours that these clowns are on a quota and/or commission structure. Sometimes you see them hiding or lurking in the downtown area waiting to write that ticket the minute your time expires.

Here is how the scam works:

If you want to dispute a ticket there is no telephone number to call and no mailing address to set a trial. They offer only four locations where you can dispute the ticket and they are all strategically placed so there is no free parking available. By the time you factor in your new parking charges to dispute the ticket and the time involved it is almost easier to just pay for the ticket whether you are guilty or not.

Recently my father was in the hospital at St. Michaels in the core of downtown Toronto. On most days when I visited, I parked in a lot where there were no time restrictions.

On the evening of January 22, 2007 I knew I was only going to visit for a short while so I parked on the street (Shuter Street) and purchased a little over one hour in time. I was in the hospital for 20 minutes and when I got out I was tagged with a thirty dollar ticket.

How is this possible? Well, the clock on the ticket machine was one hour behind so buying the ticket was for nothing. I was furious. I got out of my vehicle and walked up and down the street and saw every vehicle had a ticket on it.

I tried to dispute this but was told I had no proof.

Is there a moral to this story? NO. But I do feel better now that I have ranted.

The story goes on. I paid for this ticket, the bastards cashed my cheque on February 8, 2007 and in March they  sent a statement saying it was not paid. If the private sector worked like the government sector, nothing would ever get done!!!!!

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