Pearson Airport cracking down on drivers who park on the side of the road

By News Staff

Pearson Airport is cracking down on drivers who park on the side of the road leading into the terminals as they wait for passengers to arrive.

Starting on Wednesday, anyone parked on the roadside will have a picture of the vehicle’s license plate taken and an invoice for $75 will be sent to the driver’s home address.

However, the tickets aren’t being written by police but rather by a private company.

That company then brings collected by the photos, to the Ministry of Transportation and, for a fee, your name and address will be released to the company.

Pearson officials say they’re doing this to keep roads safe around the airport and to discourage the “unsafe practice.”

But former city councillor Howard Moscoe, who was a driving force for banning private tickets in Toronto, says “it’s a cash grab.”

“The airport is grabbing $75 from people and the province, who shouldn’t be giving out the licence plate data to the airport, is grabbing cash because they’re getting $14 for every piece of data they give out out,” he explained.

He said the Ministry of Transportation should never have opened up that data to private enforcement firms.

“No province in the country except Ontario has allowed them to get that data,” he said.

“If they’re truly interested in enforcing parking problems at the airport, let the Mississauga police, who police the airport, issue parking tickets. And then people would have the right to go to court and dispute them.”

If drivers don’t pay the fine, it won’t go against their driving record or plate renewal, but it could be sent to collections.

A spokesperson for the GTAA said that if a driver does want to challenge the fine, they have to take it up with Indigo Parking – the private company that is handing out tickets.

The airport is encouraging drivers to wait for passengers at the airport’s free cell phone lots.

There are a total of 266 temporary spots at the lots.

The lots are located about a five minute drive from both Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, off Network Road.

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