Ticket writers didn't miss affluent areas of Minneapolis

Tow trucks may have skipped over southwest Minneapolis during last week's snow emergency, but the ticket writers didn't.

The upscale neighborhoods of City Council Ward 13 still saw about 100 tickets, the fewest of any part of the city — compared to almost 1,200 in nearby Uptown. The far southwest part of the city is dominated by single-family homes with garages, and residents there aren't as dependent on street parking as apartment dwellers.

Ticketed vehicles in Minneapolis Snow Emergency on day 2 and day 3

Day ticketed: ● Day 1, Saturday ● Day 2, Sunday ● Day 3, Monday Minneapolis Impound Lot indicated by the green arrow
Source: City of Minneapolis- The 237 Day 1 tickets are not included

Council Member Linea Palmisano, who represents the area, was pleased to see the city enforced the snow emergency parking rules in her ward.

"I think it shows that our ticketing people were very even-handed across the city," she said.

This map shows data for tickets written on Dec. 28 and 29. Those days account for the vast majority of the cars tagged for violating parking restrictions.

Virtually all of the ticketing in southwest Minneapolis happened on Dec. 29, the final day of the three-day snow emergency.

"Sunday, we had fewer people to work the snow emergency because we also had to provide traffic control for the Vikings game," deputy traffic control director Carla Schmit-Gonzalez explained in an email. "That kept us closer to the central areas of the city."

Minneapolis gave out close to 7,000 tickets during the three-day snow emergency, but city contractors towed fewer than 1,600 cars, which is typical for snow emergencies.

On Dec. 27, the first night of the snow emergency, police officers are responsible for ticketing, and staffing levels were lighter than normal due to the holiday weekend, Public Works Deputy Director Heidi Hamilton said. Police wrote 237 paper tickets that night, which aren't tracked in the same database.