Downtown Parking Enforcement / Illegal Stopping

[Admiral Beez]

Almost every weekday morning I drive Parliament to Richmond to Jarvis and onto the Gardiner. And at least once a week there's some idiot with his flashers on stopped in front of Tim Hortons on Richmond (east of Sherbourne). I took this pic of yesterday's offender, turned out to be some construction guy in a vest with a tray of coffees.

This frequent occurrence causes a logjam of cars, as those intending to proceed south on Jarvis must now merge with the through traffic, and then re-enter the left most turn lane before Jarvis.

So, how does one remedy this? There's no point calling parking enforcement, since the offender will be long gone before any parking officer arrives.

 

[mdrejhon]

Flagging the TPS_ prefixed twitter handles (with the pix) have been a little more effective in the last few months. Photo and tweet every time. They actually send enforcement to the areas of clusters of daily social media tweets.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Flagging the TPS_ prefixed twitter handles (with the pix) have been a little more effective in the last few months. Photo and tweet every time. They actually send enforcement to the areas of clusters of daily social media tweets.

Great idea. Done.

https://twitter.com/AdmiralBeez/status/928991330193281024

Thanks. I'll post at least a few of these each month, likely more. Let's see if it makes a difference.

 

[mdrejhon]

Twitter is currently particularly loud lately on this related sphere.

A twitter parking enforcement guy even made Toronto Star is some related publicity in the Toronto Star:
"Tweeting bicycle officer a powerful voice that shouldn’t be silenced: Micallef"

One of the parking enforcement officers, Kyle, became a hero to Toronto cyclists for enforcing on stopped cars. Recently, he got silenced (banned from tweeting).

Urbanization going on in many parts of downtowns (particularly Toronto downtown, but also to other downtowns in GTHA) is making stopping legally increasingly difficult -- and when people do stop, it disrupts transportation. However, there's political pushback going on.

Now there's a cyclist furor over the silencing. As well as the #FreeParkingPal campaign, whose petition has almost reached 500 signatures.

Meanwhile, there are two other full-time bike-based parking enforcement officers that are sometimes nearby -- tag TPS_pke_rider and TPS_bikehart ... Just click and scroll through these! I've watched these Twitter feeds and notice they sometimes manage to ticket cars within minutes after receiving tweet alerts. They are currently actively ticketing drivers that stop & park in the Richmond bike lanes and tweet pics of cars (plates blacked-out) they ticket, to the sheer pleasure of Toronto cyclists (me included). Sure, I drive too, but let's be fair.

I personally think it's a great idea.

P.S. Because of these ongoing developments, I believe this thread should be a catchall. Topic renamed to "Downtown Parking Enforcement / Illegal Stopping" (Admiral Beez, wanna edit the thread title? Or maybe one of the mods can?). Vehicles illegally stopped downtown cores in bike lanes, ATMs, ridehails/taxis, Timmy stops, etc creating problems for cyclists, pedestrians, streetcars, and other cars. The newly-booming saga of parking enforcement officers that sides with urbanists -- and the buzz of thousands of photos in social media -- and the pushback from politicians/police and frustrated anti-bike car drivers -- the dirty laundry that has now recently spilled into Toronto Star.

 

[someMidTowner]

P.S. Because of these ongoing developments, I believe this thread should be a catchall. Topic renamed to "Downtown Parking Enforcement / Illegal Stopping" (Admiral Beez, wanna edit the thread title? Or maybe one of the mods can?)

Done!

 

[amnesiajune]

One of the parking enforcement officers, Kyle, became a hero to Toronto cyclists for enforcing on stopped cars. Recently, he got silenced (banned from tweeting).

He got into politics and started attacking a city councillor and MPP on an official TPS account. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his personal opinions, surely we all agree that no official police social media account (or any other public service for that matter) should be criticizing elected officials.

 

[mdrejhon]

The discussion of where to draw the line is certainly probably part of any account reactivation.

Meanwhile:

The "tweeting Toronto bike cops" have already directly inspired Hamilton equivalent, @HamOntParking. Not as political, but far more pro-bike than any past Hamilton enforcement on twitter. Even has some RaiseTheHammer retweets (the occasionally-controversial popular Hamilton urbanist blog).

He monitors the very popular local hashtag, #BlockedInHamOnt -- for cars blocking bike lanes is now used by local Hamilton cyclists to attach to photos of vehicles.

 

[Admiral Beez]

He monitors the very popular local hashtag, #BlockedInHamOnt -- for cars blocking bike lanes is now used by local Hamilton cyclists to attach to photos of vehicles.

Great idea. How about we start a #BlockedInToronto hashtag?

 

[PinkLucy]

Great idea. How about we start a #BlockedInToronto hashtag?

Start posting with it. Tag others who will share it and post too. Encourage cycling groups to use it. There is a new Facebook page that is posting these photos but the name escapes me for the moment.

 

[mdrejhon]

Different cities seems to have adopted different habit of social media "Batman signalling" (that batman logo in the sky).
The trends changes over time, but this is the 2017 trend.

Toronoto: Local cyclists are currently tagging photographed violations with the TPS_ handles (formerly TPS_ParkingPal, now TPS_bikehart currently and also TPS_pke_rider)
--> Realtime "Bat Signalling" Feed

Hamilton: Local cyclists are currently tagging photographed violations with the @HamOntParking (and using hashtag #BlockedInHamOnt as the signal)
--> Realtime "Bat Signalling" Feed

The realtime links above gives you a nice realtime photojournal feed of stopping-violations-in-progress.

Where one whips their cellphone out, snap a photo, tag the photo, and then tweet immediately (a 5 to 10 second process for the seasoned). And occasionally, they're caught within minutes (sometimes) if the "bat-signalled" enforcement is within a block or two away. Since tagged officers on Twitter are often alerted via a cellphone vibrate. This is all unofficial of course, and not always happens, but it's fascinating to watch the realtime feeds sometimes. At the minimum, it signals them of clusters of violations to focus on in the future.

Interestingly, the Toronto feed do not currently have a standard trending hashtag like Hamilton does, but one could "attempt" to trend one (hard for someone newly on Twitter, unless a tweet goes viral and/or you team up with other followers).

 

[TransitBart]

Almost every weekday morning I drive Parliament to Richmond to Jarvis and onto the Gardiner. And at least once a week there's some idiot with his flashers on stopped in front of Tim Hortons on Richmond (east of Sherbourne). I took this pic of yesterday's offender, turned out to be some construction guy in a vest with a tray of coffees.

This frequent occurrence causes a logjam of cars, as those intending to proceed south on Jarvis must now merge with the through traffic, and then re-enter the left most turn lane before Jarvis.

So, how does one remedy this? There's no point calling parking enforcement, since the offender will be long gone before any parking officer arrives.
View attachment 126697 View attachment 126698

Two thoughts.

1. With plates showing this is like name n shame with johns.
2. This guy’s car looks like this is not the first no stopping zone he has just ‘stopped ‘ in. I think the city should drive M-1 tanks down the curb lanes and flatten these inconsiderate folks into tin cans.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Start posting with it. Tag others who will share it and post too. Encourage cycling groups to use it. There is a new Facebook page that is posting these photos but the name escapes me for the moment.

Done, https://twitter.com/search?q=#BlockedInToronto

I'll keep it up on my future blocked in posts.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Got another this morning, see my account.

How do you post @ in Twitter on the go? I can't remember the different TPS folks I want to alert, so have to go back to my earlier tweets and cut and paste.

 

[mdrejhon]

Got another this morning, see my account.

How do you post @ in Twitter on the go? I can't remember the different TPS folks I want to alert, so have to go back to my earlier tweets and cut and paste.

Follow them.

Then everytime you type "TPS" they will show as autocomplete. When tagging photos or when typing the "@" character. Try to tag photos with individual, not (only) organization accounts. You will get zero likes/zero retweets otherwise (and only a few views whn tappin the bargraph icon). Well-composed tweets gets several hundred or even over a thousand views, even for new on Twitter.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Follow them.

Then everytime you type "TPS" they will show as autocomplete. When tagging photos or when typing the "@" character. Try to tag photos with individual, not (only) organization accounts. You will get zero likes/zero retweets otherwise (and only a few views whn tappin the bargraph icon). Well-composed tweets gets several hundred or even over a thousand views, even for new on Twitter.

Thanks. So, how would you improve this tweet? Who should I follow?