Data available from the City of Mississauga’s open data project show that there were 8,265 parking tickets issued at UTM in 2016.
The data shows that a total of 179,052 parking tickets were issued in the city of Mississauga. These tickets can contain fines ranging from $30 for parking a vehicle facing the wrong direction to $400 for parking in an accessible parking spot without the proper permit.
Although parking is enforced 24/7, very few tickets were issued between the hours of 9:00 pm and 8:00 am. In addition, the month of October saw the most parking tickets issued at 1,503, while September had the least with 199 issued.
According to the City of Mississauga’s bylaws, any individual certified by the city to enforce parking can issue a ticket if it appears to them that it is parked illegally or without a permit or Pay and Display ticket.
Megan Alekson, Manager of Parking and Transportation at UTM, estimates that around 3,100 seasonal and annual parking permits were sold on campus. However this does not limit the amount of people parking at UTM to 3,100. “Additional guests park on campus using Pay and Display,” said Alekson.
Despite the number of tickets given at UTM, the majority of parking enforcement is performed by the city, although the UTM campus police as well as one staff member of Parking and Transportation are certified to enforce parking. Alekson pointed out that none of the revenue from these parking tickets goes to the university: “Parking infraction fines are set by the City of Mississauga and any revenue from parking enforcement is collected by the City.” It is also the case that parking fines at UTSG and UTSC are set and collected by the City of Toronto.
The City of Toronto has yet to release data on 2016 parking tickets, but data from 2015 shows that there were far fewer parking tickets at UTSC than at UTM despite their almost identical student population. The city of Toronto issued a total of 3,584 tickets on the UTSC campus in 2015, which is less than half the number of tickets that were given out at UTM in 2016.
