In 2012, nearly 2M D.C. parking tickets issued

Monday - 3/11/2013, 3:47am  ET

Ari Ashe, wtop.com

WASHINGTON - It can be hard enough to find a parking spot in the District, but when you do, there's a good chance you will get a ticket.

In fiscal year 2012, D.C. issued 1.8 million parking tickets worth $92.5 million, according to records obtained by AAA Mid-Atlantic. Most of those tickets went to drivers who live outside of D.C.

"It's a war on the 400,000 drivers who come into the city every day and desperately need parking. The District thinks it's winning this war, but it's not," says John B. Townsend II, AAA Mid-Atlantic's manager of public and government affairs.

Those 1.8 million tickets break down to about 7.3 tickets issued per minute and 436 parking tickets per hour, accounting for federal holidays and Sundays, when parking is free. It's also about a 6 percent drop in parking tickets from the previous year.

AAA obtained the parking ticket data through a Freedom of Information Act request.

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