People parking illegally in Pittsburgh could soon get tickets in the mail rather than on their windshields.

The change could improve safety and efficiency for the parking enforcers tasked with ticketing cars that don’t pay meters or violate other parking rules, said David Onorato executive director of the Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh.

Legislation was introduced to City Council this week that would allow the parking authority to send tickets through in the mail. Council is expected to take a preliminary vote on the measure next week, with a final vote set for the following week.

The goal of the program, Onorato said, is to make the job safer and to allow the authority to do more with less staffing.

Ticketing by mail means that parking enforcers won’t need to get out of their cars and step into traffic or interact with potentially angry people.

If council approves the measure, the switchover to ticketing by the mail could take a few months, Onorato said. The authority’s software would need to be updated.

The authority is working out details now about which parts of the city would see the changes first and how parking enforcement officers would determine which cars to ticket by mail.

The “majority” of tickets will still be placed on windshields, at least at first, Onorato said.

Currently, parking enforcement occurs in the South Side’s bustling entertainment district only when police officers are able to escort authority employees amid concerns about violence in the area, Onorato said.

An option to ticket by mail would allow the parking authority to enforce regulations in that stretch without a police presence — and without risking workers’ safety.

It would also eliminate the dangers enforcement officers face when they have to walk up to a car parked along a busy street with fast-moving traffic.

The process isn’t totally automated; an enforcement officer still needs to make rounds through the area to identify parking violators, and parking authority staff will check all of the tickets before mailing them, Onorato said.

The change, which impacts only how people receive tickets, could bolster efficiency, which is critical since the authority has been short-staffed since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, Onorato said.

“It’ll enable us to cover more ground with less staffing, like we have now,” he said.

Onorato said the parking authority is currently hiring and plans to continue to do so. The ticketing switch won’t cost any meter readers their jobs, he said, but could help them get more done.

Currently, the parking authority has 20 to 25 officers. Pre-pandemic, it had between 40 and 45, Onorato said.

Once ticketing by mail is an option, the authority intends to set a goal of covering the entire city at least once a week. That’s about double the current rate of enforcement, Onorato said.

“We kind of rearrange our schedule every week to make sure we’re hitting things at least bimonthly,” he said, explaining the authority is tasked with enforcing meter parking, residential permit parking zones and other parking laws, like no parking in front of fire hydrants.

“Just to see compliance go up — that’s what our ultimate goal is,” Onorato said. “After people get comfortable with this and know we’re out there more, compliance goes up and payment at the meters goes up.”

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