This matches my experiences in Chicago. A FOIA request got me all of Chicago's parking ticket data from Jan 2009 to March 2016 and I did some quick awk commands to find the most ticketed spots. I found some pretty interesting ones and even went to one of the spots to figure out why so many tickets happen in these spots - it's mostly just from signage issues and bad parking meters that let you pay after parking hours. In particular, a three car-length spot received 2.2 million dollars and a LOT of tows.
I called and emailed the alderman office that would handle that spot and got zero results. Tried contacting media outlets, etc, but nobody wants to help out in fixing the spot. Hell, I even posted on reddit and got downvoted for "trying to help dumb people".
It's incredibly frustrating that it's seemingly impossible to get anything done in any large city as an individual who just wants to help out.