Toronto’s towing ‘crackdown’ wasn’t much of a crackdown, stats show

Updated 12:41 p.m. March 3 to clarify source of towing and ticketing statistics.

Mayor John Tory touted his rush hour parking blitz as a crackdown on motorist scofflaws that would lay down the law by towing more illegally parked vehicles.

But the opposite occurred, according to data Global News obtained from the city: That month there was actually a small drop in the total number of city-wide towings, even as the city issued more parking tickets.

According to a chart obtained from the Parking Ticket Operations division of the city’s Revenue Services, created by police for the mayor’s office, the number of cars towed by the city during rush hour decreased from 1,394 in December to 1,313 during the first month of the blitz – a drop of about six per cent. As for the number of cars tagged for towing, the rates also dropped by one per cent, from 8,013 to 7,898.

READ MORE: More than 300 vehicles towed during first week of rush-hour crackdown

What gives?

The city thinks the drop means the crackdown is a victim of its own success: All the publicity surrounding the pending “blitz” motivated Torontonians to comply with parking laws.

By “scaring” drivers into compliance, the city argues, the campaign achieved what it was meant to do – reduce illegal parking and alleviate rush-hour congestion.

Not so fast: Parking tickets are a different story. Between Jan. 5 and Feb. 13, the city issued more than 11,000 parking tickets city-wide. That’s almost a 35 per cent increase to a similar period last year from November to December.

The city produced an average of 364 tickets per weekday, with the day of highest activity of that period during the first day of the blitz at 490 tickets given. (The number of tickets tends to drop precipitously on Saturdays and Sundays.)

As for where the tickets have been issued, the vast majority are in the downtown area with very few in Scarborough and northwest Etobicoke. The city said that this is probably because of fewer parking restrictions as well as less congestion in those areas.