Major parking news broke late last week: City Council passed a bill to create an amnesty program for drivers who’ve racked up unpaid parking tickets over the years.
You can read the whole bill here, but here’s the TL;DR version: The city will let you pay $50 to wipe your pre-2013 parking ticket debt as long as you haven’t gotten a ticket since 2013. Others can pay what they owe since 2013 and everything before that will be forgiven.
Sounds like a dream for people who have trouble reading signs and DGAF about fire hydrants, bike lanes and pedestrian access. It’s a nightmare for the services that benefit from parking violations — particularly the schools.
The Pennsylvania Auditor General recently found the Philadelphia Parking Authority has failed to collect more than $580 million from outstanding tickets since 1990. Nearly $80 million of that would have gone to the School District of Philadelphia.
The next stop for the bill is Mayor Jim Kenney’s desk.
