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Los Angeles drivers may soon find it a bit easier to avoid parking tickets on street sweeping days. On Wednesday, the city council’s Public Works and Gang Reduction Committee approved a pilot program aimed at reducing the number of tickets the city hands out for street sweeping violations.
The pilot program, which still needs to be approved by the full council, would last eight to 10 months and be focused on the communities of Woodland Hills and West LA.
Under the plan, residents of those communities would be able to subscribe to a service alerting them by email or smartphone notification when they’ll need to move their vehicles to make way for the street sweeper, and when the street sweeper has passed.
Once the street has been swept, residents will be able to move their vehicles back to where they were previously parked, without having to wait for the no parking window of time to expire.
The proposed program is in response to a recommendation from the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group, a committee of stakeholders formed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 to provide feedback on the city’s parking enforcement policy.
A recent review of parking policy from City Controller Ron Galperin found that street cleaning violations were the most common type of ticket handed out by LA traffic officers. In fiscal year 2014-2015, 646,110 street sweeping violations were recorded citywide.
If the pilot program is successful in reducing the number of these violations, it could be expanded to the entire city.
For budget-minded city officials, though, there could be a downside to the plan’s success: A report from city staff estimates that an LA-wide rollout would cost the city between $4.5 million and $11.8 million in lost ticket revenue.
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