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Couple points: 1) I said nothing about whether parking enforcement should be lax or not: that's an entirely separate question from how it's funded. 2) Municip

by scarmig 13y ago

Couple points: 1) I said nothing about whether parking enforcement should be lax or not: that's an entirely separate question from how it's funded. 2) Municipalities do differ, but the fee associated with a ticket either often ends up divvied up to agencies related to the ticket-issuing. See [1], for instance. (I couldn't find one where that wasn't the case, but I suspect that's probably because of people complaining loudly about this issue, resulting in Google giving a bad sample) 3) The meta-political discussion seems odd to me: no one (here, at least) is saying we should move to an authoritarian regime that institutes all these regulations by fiat. Speaking for myself, I want the public to build democratic governance structures that give officials the correct incentives to maximize social good. [1] https://exploreb2b.com/articles/where-does-your-traffic-ticket-money-go https://exploreb2b.com/articles/where-does-your-traffic-tick...

stinkytaco 13y ago
The meta political discussion is more to address the point that the OP made that parking tickets as a revenue source are a "social ill, full stop". It is hard for me to believe that parking revenue should not be allowed to be used to offer services to the citizens of a municipality if there is adequate political oversight. If you feel the parking money is misappropriated or downright being fraudulently collected to raise revenue, this is an issue that local elected officials are designated to deal with. If you feel that is not being done, that is what the political process is for. I am not saying that this does not occur, I am saying that there is recourse and that its occurrence does not rule out the use of parking fines as a revenue source everywhere without exception. As to point 2, I am sure there are municipalities that work like that, just that I know of none and that the article is a bit flimsy. I don't disbelieve that what you say occurs does, but I do believe that if there's an issue, it should be uncovered by a careful audit.

by scarmig 13y ago

stinkytaco 13y ago

The meta political discussion is more to address the point that the OP made that parking tickets as a revenue source are a "social ill, full stop". It is hard for me to believe that parking revenue should not be allowed to be used to offer services to the citizens of a municipality if there is adequate political oversight. If you feel the parking money is misappropriated or downright being fraudulently collected to raise revenue, this is an issue that local elected officials are designated to deal with. If you feel that is not being done, that is what the political process is for. I am not saying that this does not occur, I am saying that there is recourse and that its occurrence does not rule out the use of parking fines as a revenue source everywhere without exception. As to point 2, I am sure there are municipalities that work like that, just that I know of none and that the article is a bit flimsy. I don't disbelieve that what you say occurs does, but I do believe that if there's an issue, it should be uncovered by a careful audit.