Residents in Baltimore neighborhood are sick of traffic tickets

There’s something special about older neighborhoods, especially when families have lived in those neighborhoods for decades. We all know that a home is more than a place over your head; it’s a source of security. When you are home, you are safe and sound.

Apparently, however, residents in the Northern Baltimore neighborhood on Gittings Avenue aren’t safe from getting traffic tickets for simply parking in front of their homes. Some streets around the city aren’t as wide or have the parking options like others, a reality that has recently been costing some residents a lot of money in parking tickets.

According to The Baltimore Sun, for about the past year, Gittings Avenue residents have dealt with the hassle of law enforcement’s reported increased focus on their parking habits. In the neighborhood, residents and their guests tend to park with two of their tires up on the sidewalk in order to leave room for passing cars.

That parking behavior reportedly started costing people money after decades of getting away with it for free. Currently, the going rate for the traffic tickets is $77, and people want a break. They want to get home, park their cars in front of their houses and call it a night without worrying about whether they will wake up to a ticket on their windshield.

Instead of just living with the upped traffic enforcement and continuing to pay for their supposed violations, the residents have sought help from local lawmakers. Those lawmakers plan to try to get more power in the neighborhoods so parking laws can be made more effectively at a local level.

Source

The Baltimore Sun: “Tickets in Lake Walker spur anger, council hearing,” Luke Broadwater, Sep. 27, 2011