Private enterprise green hornets for your parking pleasure?

The Toronto Police Service will ask for proposals from private firms who want to assume the job of handing out parking tickets It’s part of a plan to implement the 24 recommendations outlined in the Transformational Task Force Interim Report, which was released June 17 and aims to address a range of issues, including ways to curb the $1-billion-plus police budget and to foster public trust. How would this scheme benefit the public? Bluntly put, it might not, but the most obvious guess is that a private firm would employ fewer ticket hornets and drive them to issue just as many tickets for less pay. That prospect has raised the concern that the already aggressive ticketing process in Toronto will see cars plastered with citations. The 394 civilian employees of the parking authority are said to be worried for their jobs.

 DIGITAL EFFECT

When digital parking (and ticketing) expands to street parking, there is a potential for the number of tickets issued to drop drastically. Drivers who merely misjudge their time will easily avoid them. With cell phones warning motorists that time is expiring, and the capacity to top up from a distance, drivers can reduce violations. Of course there are still people who purposely offend and hope to escape. They would be the intense focus of private hornets who might simply camp out at Starbucks.