Curbing the Chaos: The Impact of Parking Ticket-by-Mail on City Streets

By Erin Clark

There are many things I love about living in Pittsburgh — the iconic entrance into the city through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, each of our neighborhood’s unique identities, the riverfront trails, the Mr. Rogers level friendliness, and the fact that Yinzers put french fries on salads.

But with the good comes the bad — the consistent rain and gray skies, ill-maintained infrastructure due to budget constraints and a limited tax base, but, most of all, it’s the parking. And no, I’m not frustrated about the lack of parking (we have plenty of it!), but I am complaining about the people who park and stop on sidewalks, in bike lanes, and in travel lanes — which often makes walking, biking, and driving feel scary, especially now that I’m traveling around with a 7-month-old.

So, as you can imagine, I was thrilled to see that the Pittsburgh City Council unanimously adopted legislation allowing for parking tickets to be issued through the mail to the registered owners of illegally parked vehicles. This legislation unlocks Pittsburgh’s ability to utilize camera and sensing technology to identify parking violations in real-time and issue tickets — a huge deal for Pittsburgh’s ability to effectively manage the chaotic curb space. While Pittsburgh is an early adopter of such legislation, many other cities are considering similar measures, which are likely to become the norm as cities continue working to better manage their curb space.

Why this matters

In recent years, cities across the country have seen a significant increase in demand for curb space. While the curb used to almost exclusively be for parking cars, today, many services and transactions occur at the curb. Below are just a few ways the curb is now used:

• Parking (storing) our personal cars
• Trash and recycling collection
• Package deliveries (usually with 2-day delivery!)
• Catching the bus
• Food and groceries deliveries (sometimes daily)
• Being dropped off and picked up by a friend, ride-hail vehicle, or taxi
• Delivery of bulk goods and supplies to our favorite stores and restaurants
• Riding our bikes in protected bike lanes
• Dining with our friends at outdoor cafes now known as “streeteries”
• Charging our electric vehicles

With all these competing demands, cities like Pittsburgh are striving to accommodate existing curb space for more diverse and dynamic uses. Unfortunately, in cities I’ve lived in, visited, and worked with across the country, I’ve observed that even the most thoughtful curb regulations can’t effectively manage the chaotic curb space without consistent enforcement.

In Pittsburgh, we have a culture of parking on sidewalks, particularly on narrow residential streets, as drivers seek to protect their cars from being hit while failing to recognize the serious safety consequences this has for pedestrians, especially people using wheelchairs and pushing strollers. Although this seems like an egregious parking violation that would surely get you a ticket, our Parking Authority doesn’t have the capacity to issue tickets to all violators and keep our sidewalks clear.

Similarly, many of the demands for parcel, food, and grocery deliveries as well as passenger pick-ups and drop-offs are relatively short stops (less than 5 minutes) and, due to lack of available curb space adjacent to their destination, drivers often choose to park or stop their vehicle in “no parking” zones, bike lanes, or double park in travel lanes. These “quick” violations are hard to enforce but also have serious safety and access consequences — diverting bikes into vehicular traffic, blocking fire hydrants and emergency access points, blocking bus stops and accessible parking, and preventing city services like street sweeping and refuse collection.

This bad behavior disproportionately impacts our more vulnerable neighbors, including people with disabilities who rely on curb and sidewalk space to travel safely, and transit users who rely on a bus accessing the curb to safely board and exit the bus.

This chaos at the curb is bad for business, too. Lack of reliable loading space creates safety risks for delivery drivers while unloading trucks alongside (or in) traffic without adequate space to unload and sort packages. Additionally, many delivery companies currently treat parking tickets as a cost of doing business, but have to guess at projected costs each month or quarter that can vary significantly. This approach further indicates that businesses are treating compliance with regulations as optional, circumventing the City’s ability to manage curb space for its highest and best use.

Ticket-by-mail as a curb management tool

So, how does ticket-by-mail help to improve curb management and reduce these harms in our cities? Here are a few ways:

1. Efficiency — More consistent enforcement of parking and goods and passenger loading encourages turnover, ensuring drivers don’t overstay their allocated time limits. This creates more opportunities for drivers to access parking or loading space. Automated enforcement systems can improve travel time by helping to reduce instances of double parking or parking in restricted “no-parking” zones, which slows the flow of traffic.
2. Safety — Many of the most significant curb-related safety risks come from vehicles double parking to make pick-ups, drop-offs, or deliveries. These stops are often fairly short (<10 minutes), but force vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic to divert around the stopped vehicle and create blind spots, resulting in an increased risk of crashes. Catching those “quick” violators that create significant safety risks will make the city a safer place and help Pittsburgh implement its recently adopted Vision Zero ordinance.
3. Conflict Reduction — When talking about curb management, we often fail to discuss the safety risks to parking enforcement officers (PEOs). In Pittsburgh, there have been repeated instances of PEOs being threatened when issuing parking tickets to violators. Automated enforcement allows PEOs to issue tickets from their vehicle or use their time to review and confirm tickets issued via fixed cameras and sensors. Reducing the interaction between the public and PEOs, as well as law enforcement officers, can reduce conflict and improve safety for all involved.
4. Consistency and Equity — Using more automated systems allows cities to apply parking regulations uniformly, ensuring parking tickets are issued based on objective criteria, without bias or favoritism. Expanded enforcement capacity also ensures curb regulations are enforced consistently across neighborhoods and communities, providing the benefits of effective curb management to historically underserved areas where manual enforcement may be less frequent. These automated systems also enable cities to keep bus stops and lanes, bike lanes, accessible parking, crosswalks, and curb ramps clear by issuing tickets for these illegal parkings and stops more consistently.
5. Compliance and Capacity- Using automated systems to monitor parking violations without the need for constant human oversight can allow more efficient enforcement with fewer resources. This is especially critical in Pittsburgh, where the Pittsburgh Parking Authority is struggling with hiring and retention. Currently, Pittsburgh employs fewer than 25 enforcement officers to enforce all on-street parking, street cleaning, no-parking zones, 33 city-owned surface lots, and 33 residential parking districts. Allowing enforcement officers to use automated enforcement means they can cover more ground more quickly and don’t have to get out of their cars or otherwise stop to write tickets. While high volumes of tickets are not the goal for any city, increased enforcement leads to increased compliance, resulting in safer, more efficient use of curbs and streets.
6. Economic Growth — Expanded enforcement capacity using automated systems can also benefit businesses of all sizes. For instance, properly regulated loading zones, pick-up/drop-off zones, and short-term parking space provide convenient access for customers with a higher turnover of available space, which can help increase sales. Additionally, with reliable curb space, delivery drivers won’t accumulate tickets for double parking or parking illegally and can complete more deliveries as they’ll no longer be circling blocks looking for parking.

While Pittsburgh has taken a critical step toward safer, more efficient streets, it’s important to remember that ticket-by-mail isn’t a silver bullet solution to curb management.

I look forward to seeing the other curb management tools Pittsburgh develops to create a user-centered, holistic curb management system — and reap the benefits of a well-managed curb space. In the meantime, I’m anxiously awaiting the benefits this legislation will bring to the Burgh, and hope someday, nervously pushing my daughter’s stroller into the street around a car parked on the sidewalk will be a stress of the past.

Interested in improving curb management in your city? Reach out to me, I’d love to chat more!

To learn more about Pittsburgh’s curb management pilots, visit the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure’s website.