MTA Wants to Hike Parking Fees and Fines

Anybody who drives a car in San Francisco knows that parking is expensive, and violating the parking laws is really expensive. According to an article in today's Chronicle, the cost may go up even more. The MTA has already announced that they may raise the cost of Fast Passes in order to offset a growing $8.2 million budget deficit. Now officials are also considering raising the cost of parking at a meter by 50 cents, all parking fines less than $90 by ten dollars, and residential parking permits from $60 to $76 by 2010. Parking fines are by far the most profitable for the MTA, which rakes in 664,000 of the $50 fines a year. An increase of ten bucks would net about $12 million extra. Maybe now they can afford to hire a full time safety and training manager and convince people to start riding Muni again. -Andy Wright