MONROE - The parking rule intended to make it easier to plow residential streets ends today.
Until calendar parking again goes into effect Nov. 15, drivers in Monroe are off the hook to move their cars nightly in accordance with the date - even side of the street on even-numbered days, odd side of the street on odd-numbered days.
Monroe Police issued 707 tickets this season for vehicles parked on the wrong side of the street, Chief Fred Kelley said.
Officers wrote another 23 tickets for cars that violated snow-route parking rules, he said.
At $20 a ticket, that's more than $14,000 in tickets during the 2011-2012 winter.
That's a little lower than in recent years, according to Kelley, but he added that it's tricky to try to attribute that to the scant snowfall this winter. On one hand, "people are more lackadaisical when there's no snow," but "if there's not snow, we write less."
The money collected is basically a wash budget-wise, he said. The department isn't going into the red to send out officers to ticket vehicles in the early morning hours. Tickets aren't bringing in a profit, either.
"A ticket needs to be a deterrent. Our intent with this is not to make money," he said.
Up until a few years ago, the city used to charge a nickel an hour for metered parking on the Square, and the police ticketed violators $5.
That was too low, Kelly maintains, but $20 is just enough to deter drivers from forgetting to move their vehicles.
Until calendar parking again goes into effect Nov. 15, drivers in Monroe are off the hook to move their cars nightly in accordance with the date - even side of the street on even-numbered days, odd side of the street on odd-numbered days.
Monroe Police issued 707 tickets this season for vehicles parked on the wrong side of the street, Chief Fred Kelley said.
Officers wrote another 23 tickets for cars that violated snow-route parking rules, he said.
At $20 a ticket, that's more than $14,000 in tickets during the 2011-2012 winter.
That's a little lower than in recent years, according to Kelley, but he added that it's tricky to try to attribute that to the scant snowfall this winter. On one hand, "people are more lackadaisical when there's no snow," but "if there's not snow, we write less."
The money collected is basically a wash budget-wise, he said. The department isn't going into the red to send out officers to ticket vehicles in the early morning hours. Tickets aren't bringing in a profit, either.
"A ticket needs to be a deterrent. Our intent with this is not to make money," he said.
Up until a few years ago, the city used to charge a nickel an hour for metered parking on the Square, and the police ticketed violators $5.
That was too low, Kelly maintains, but $20 is just enough to deter drivers from forgetting to move their vehicles.