Aug 17, 2014 4 min read

Next month, Waynesburg Borough’s new parking fine ordinance takes effect, and those who park in unmetered areas in the borough’s business district are going to be in for a big surprise if a parking ticket appears on their car’s windshield.

For the first time since 1986, fines for violating the two-hour parking limit are going to increase. No, they are going to skyrocket.

For the last 28 years, the fine for parking longer than two hours in an unmetered spot was $5. Come Sept. 10 or 11, that fine jumps to $20, a 300 percent increase. Excessive? We think so. Why not follow suit with the increase for meter violations, which will go from $5 to $10?

We also are puzzled by the exorbitant $20 penalty for parking too far from the curb and failing to park within the marked parking space. Now, too far from the curb is determined by the parking patrol person using a tape measure. We are not talking about a car sticking out in the middle of the street causing a hazard; we are talking a violation measured by inches.

With respect to failing to park within the marked parking space, again, this is mostly about inches. If a car’s front tires are over a white line by inches, it is assumed by the parking patrol that the car is taking up two spaces. Sometimes, that could be the case, depending how far over the white line the car is. But most of the time, there is ample parking space left for another car to park either in front of or behind the offending over-the-line car.

We do agree, though, with the fine increases for offenses such as parking on the sidewalk, parking facing traffic, parking in a permitted area and parking on streets scheduled for street sweeping. The fines for parking in a loading zone and in a no-parking zone will be $40; and parking in a handicapped zone and in front of a fire hydrant will each be $50.

These fines actually make sense.

Returning to the two-hour limit, motorists who violate it and are ticketed will be ticketed again every two hours if the vehicle is not moved. The two-hour limit will be enforced only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For the parking scofflaws, and there are a few who pull into a spot at 9 a.m. and stay until 5 p.m., they undoubtedly deserve to be hit with some hefty fines. But for those who may overstay the two-hour time limit by minutes, well, we sympathize with you.

For years, the borough’s main thoroughfares and side streets have been free of parking meters. There exists, however, permitted lots and at least two metered lots. There are those who work in Waynesburg who want to park close to their place of work, such as the county courthouse. If this latter group of people are unable to find the really free places, such as a certain side alley or a street beyond the wand of the yellow chalk marker, then we expect to see a stream of people leaving their workplaces to move their cars before that $20 ticket is placed on the windshield.

We are aware the prompt behind the borough’s decision to revise its ordinance came from retail shop owners, complaining customers had no place to park. We understand, but that should be a signal to the borough that more public parking should be made available.

Waynesburg University purchased and then razed the old county office building on High Street. Although no details have been released as to what the university plans to do with that space, we would guess parking may be part of the blueprint.

When borough council adopted the ordinance last week, it did so without comment. Equally surprising, no comments were received from the public regarding the ordinance.

We cannot imagine everyone is satisfied with the new ordinance, unless of course borough residents believe the glut of revenue that could come from these fines would eventually negate any reason council would have to raise taxes.