The City of Toronto’s Open Data project has revealed that the city issued a collective total of 31,740 tickets at UTSG and UTSC, resulting in $1,472,765 in fines.
Out of these fines, 28,224 tickets totaling $1,349,475 were issued at UTSG. At 15 Devonshire Place, by the George Ignatieff Theatre, the city issued 1,187 tickets totaling $40,735, the highest amount of parking tickets on the campus.
Among locations where more than one ticket was issued, the most expensive tickets, on average, were collected at 40 St. George Street, in front of the Bahen Centre for Information Technology and the Koffler Student Services Centre, with an average fine of $261.04. Most of these fines came about due to drivers parking in spots without a valid permit in the accessible parking spots on the street in front of the building.
At UTSC, the city issued $123,290 in fines from 3,516 tickets. The highest number of tickets across both campuses was given at 1265 Military Trail, with 2,450 tickets totaling $83,440.
Thursdays saw the highest number of parking tickets at UTSG, while UTSC saw more tickets issued on Tuesdays. Sundays were the quietest day for tickets on both campuses.
The vast majority of parking tickets on the St. George campus were issued from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm. At UTSC, no parking tickets were issued from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am, and the number of tickets spiked at 11:00 am and 4:00 pm.
The data shows a steady decline in the number of parking tickets at UTSC between March and August. At UTSG, the number of parking tickets was more consistent throughout the year.
The number of parking tickets has not significantly changed since 2015, when the city issued 31,215 tickets totaling approximately $1.4 million on the two campuses.
The majority of parking tickets at UTSC are issued by the Parking Enforcement Unit of the Toronto Police Service. “Campus Police primarily issue tickets for vehicles parked in non-designated areas like fire routes or for vehicles parked in accessible spaces without a valid permit,” wrote U of T Media Assistant Molly Wilkie in an email to The Varsity.
At UTSG, parking enforcement on all city streets is performed by Toronto Police. Transportation Services at U of T is responsible for university property.
Data from UTM was not part of this dataset, as parking tickets on that campus are issued by the City of Mississauga. Earlier this year, The Varsity analyzed the City of Mississauga’s parking ticket data and reported that 8,265 parking tickets were issued at UTM. The City of Mississauga’s datasets do not reveal how much the tickets totaled.
