With a private company running the ship, they are in it for profit. In many areas of our society, we encourage and appreciate this: It provides the most effective services at the lowest cost. With parking enforcement, however, there is a great cost to the people of the community, and all the benefits are reaped by a private company. In this case, I would almost prefer that the city handle enforcement, because even if they enforced the parking ordinances as vigorously as the private company, at least the income from parking tickets could be used to offset taxpayer burden in some areas or to offer enhanced services.

But because the city would be accountable for the costs and has limited resources, you’d likely not see a parking enforcement officer out ticketing cars on a dry November eve when the temperature is 35 degrees and there’s zero chance of snow. It’s not worth their time and the goal of the ordinance (unimpeded access for snow plows) is irrelevant.

Instead, you get a private company who will go out every night, even if it’s 50 degrees and absolutely no chance of snow, and ticket every car, at a great profit for them. The money goes into the pockets of a businessman, and the community sees a negative net benefit.

Its the same thing we see in booting cars in parking lots. The company will boot anyone, regardless of whether the illegally parked car is having a negative impact on the lot. I believe that cars should only be booted when there is a complaint made by a tenant or a property owner.

Alas, Logan Parking Authority is now a pseudo-governmental authority with far more power than a regular Joe and none of the accountability. What a disaster.

The City contracts out parking enforcement but does not make money from the arrangement, although the Parking Authority (private contractor) does. Nonetheless, your observation about the perverse incentive is spot on.

Last year the parking law was changed to where cars would only be ticketed during, or within 48 hours of, a snowstorm. This made sense. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was a tremendous upgrade over the previous law.

Two weeks later, the law was not only reverted to the previous regulations, but it was tightened so that the time where you weren’t allowed to park on the street was given an extra half hour for LPA to issue tickets.

The reasoning given was that the 48-hour period after a snowstorm was too confusing for residents.
I find it difficult to believe that in just two weeks of the changed law that there was a mountain of complaints from people that were no-longer being ticketed for parking outside when there wasn’t any snow. If I remember right there was only one snowstorm during this two weeks.

I have little doubt that LPA saw that they would be issuing far less tickets with the new law and took a nice little incentive to some Logan City Council members to have the law reverted.
It seems like that is just politics at its best right there. Whether or not this is the truth on the matter, this is a very frustrating and very unnecessary law that makes Logan a less desirable place to live than it should be.

What comes next? Does the city decide to privatize speeding enforcement? Would these jackboots start giving out tickets for 1 mph over the limit?

This whole thing is just a way for the city to make money while turning a blind eye to it’s citizens being exploited.

I imagine the argument from the city would be that you just shouldn’t drink.

This policy isn’t really about snow removal. Snow removal is the pretense. It is about the City’s War on Rentals and the effort to drive renters out of inner-Logan by eliminating all of their parking.

And yes, they are creating perverse and dangerous incentives to those that visit bars. I hope Bridge sends a letter to the paper and emails the Council.