Increased Parking Fines Add To Financial Woes Of Detroiters

DETROIT (WWJ) - The new fines and fees for parking violations in the city of Detroit have some drivers seeing red, while the city is taking in a lot of green.

"I got a boot on my car," said Ariana Davis of Detroit as she was dropped off by her husband, Michael Boyd, to pick up her car at the Municipal Parking department.

"That's my wife, I had to leave work today because she called me she was going to the Eastern Market - to go shopping for us and her car got a boot on it," Boyd told WWJ's City Beat reporter Vickie Thomas.

The couple had to dig into their rent money to get their car back.

"You see people having trouble paying it now ... it's just going to get more people in financial hardship," he noted.

He said they even receive some tickets in the mail.

Tony Wilson of Detroit was there to pay a fine: "It still hurt in the pocket a little bit."

The new fine for an expired parking meter will set folks back $45.

Some residents walked to the department on Tenth Street - while others are getting dropped off because their vehicles have been booted like this woman's car:

"People in Detroit don't have jobs or nothing else, you know, so to raise it from $20 to $45 - we pay tax up the butt and have no services and now you raising that too. It's already no where to park."

She believes it will stop people from coming into the Midtown and downtown areas.

But Detroiter Brandy Coleman said that "they're just not going to pay them and get booted."