The Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to vote on Wednesday to raise the cost of parking illegally in the city. Regardless of the type of violation, the penalty for breaking any parking violation will be $5 higher than it was before the Council’s action.

Despite the incremental increase, the move will be widely seen as just a revenue generating ploy, something the Council is making no attempts to hide. The first page of the memo accompanying the legislation even states:

The draft ordinance is presented in response to budget actions recently taken by your Honorable Body, and increases the existing fines by the amount of $5.00 across all violations.

Because the document lists all of the fines for parking, we can see some other places where the city might want to change its fee structure. For example, it’s only $5 more expensive to park in a crosswalk or someone else’s driveway, $50, as it is to not "immediately place coin in meter," $45.

Los Angeles isn’t using the new revenue stream to help upgrade its transportation network. Funds collected from the increased fees will go towards closing the city’s budget shortfall.

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