In many East Coast cities, the expected cost of a parking ticket is much lower than the guaranteed cost of garage parking. Fines have not kept pace with inflation at all.

In NYC, parking tickets cost $45-125. Fire hydrant violations are at the upper end of that range. But when garage parking is $10-20 an hour, rolling the dice on the fine is the economically rational behavior. Yes, this is sociopathic when you apply it to fire hydrants, but NYC drivers are sociopaths.

They ought to add a zero to all those fines and start heavily using the carrot to discourage driving. But the thing is, the city quite likes the status quo. If those fines were more of a deterrent, the city would get less revenue. The fines need to be low enough not to actually discourage the antisocial behavior. Isn’t neoliberalism awesome?