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Target 11 investigates parking ticket hot spots

PITTSBURGH — You park your car and feed the meter. You’re only going to be a short time.  But when you return, the meter is expired and there’s a ticket on your windshield.

Target 11 wanted to know where you are most likely to get a parking ticket?  We obtained every parking ticket issued in the city of Pittsburgh during the last several years.

Target 11 Investigator Rick Earle and Executive Producer Deb Gaita crunched all of the numbers and came up with the top seven locations in the city.

“I put my flashers on, right there.  It was only two seconds," Danielle Laroche told Target 11 Investigator Rick Earle.

Laroche is one of approximately 22,000 drivers during a two-year stretch who got a parking ticket on Forbes Avenue.  Target 11 examined all of the parking tickets issued during 2012 and 2013, and we discovered that Forbes is the most ticketed street in the city.

That didn’t surprise some drivers.

“No, I’m not because it’s so busy,” said John Weidman.

“They're always here writing tickets,” said Kimberly Diamond.

And it’s not surprising that many of the most highly ticketed streets are some of the longest and busiest in the city.

Coming in at No. 2 on our list of hot spots is Penn Avenue with more than 14,000 tickets.

Next on the list is Carson Street on the Southside, where enforcement officers handed out nearly 10,000 tickets.

“What is the city doing with the money?” said Joe DeFrancesco, who recently got a ticket on Carson Street.

While we were interviewing DeFrancesco, he was worried about getting another one.

“Watch they don't tag my vehicle over there because I  just parked for five minutes, and I have to run into the bank,” DeFrancesco told Earle.

Liberty Avenue is No. 4 on the list with 8,300 tickets.

“Here in Squirrel Hill it could be a dose of double trouble for drivers.  If the parking enforcement officers don’t get you on Forbes Avenue, they may get you right over here on Murray Avenue.  It comes in at No. 5 on our list,” said Earle.

Murray had about 8,000 tickets.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” said Laroche.

“It’s a money-making strip,” said Diamond.

During that same two-year period, parking enforcement officers issued more than half a million tickets in the city of Pittsburgh.  That brought in nearly $16 million.  So where does all that money go?  The revenue from parking tickets goes into the city’s general fund, and that is used to pay for daily operations of the city, employee health care and pensions and debt service.