BY KELLY ROCHE

Burnhamthorpe Road is taking the top spot as the most complained-about street in Mississauga for parking in 2015.
That’s when 772 residential and commercial grievances were filed with the city.
The most common offences along Burnhamthorpe were: parking on private property without owner’s consent; parking at a metre without clearly displaying receipt; parking in a designated fire route; parking within three metres of a fire hydrant; and parking at a metre ‘not within the permitted period.’
The City of Mississauga banked $6.8 million from parking fines in 2015 — a $1 million increase versus 2014.
The QEW South Post asked the city for a top 10 list of parking complaints.
Information was provided, however, city staff declined to be interviewed.
“The data is collected by street and not by the section of the street, so we cannot specify any particular stretch,” said director of enforcement Mickey Frost in an e-mailed statement, adding “we track the date of the complaint only and do not group them into time of year or seasons.”
An average of 20,445 parking complaints have been lodged annually over the past two years.
In terms of geography, Ward 4 dominated the complaint list in 2015. Prince of Wales Dr. ranked second overall, followed by Webb Dr., Mississauga Valley Blvd., Absolute Ave., Hurontario St., Duke of York Blvd., Rathburn Rd., Bloor St., and Kariya Dr.
Coun. John Kovac wasn’t available for an interview Thursday and his staff wouldn’t confirm if he would be free to comment Friday.
Streetsville resident Kavi Kumar was talking, though, and says she’s not surprised by the number of gripes near Square One.
“It’s very busy,” she said while feeding the meter along Burnhamthorpe Rd. near Duke of York Blvd.
“It’s difficult to find something.”
Chirag Amin says he lives close to the mall.
“I can understand why people have an issue,” Amin said, waiting for his kids in a minivan outside of the Central Library.
He says he does his best to avoid parking issues altogether by walking to Celebration Square and the surrounding area, even during winter.
Haaris Kirmani lives in a nearby condo and says parking, “for us, is not a big deal.”
He points out there’s plenty of visitor parking, in addition to underground space at Celebration Square but “no one likes to pay for it.”
Parking issues are filed by phone, e-mail and via the city’s website.
Dixie Rd. edged out Absolute Ave. with the most complaints in 2014.

---

In total, 20,046 complaints were filed in 2015. Here’s the parking complaint breakdown with the top five offences:

In 2014, residential and commercial parking complaints totalled 20,843. Here are the top 10 streets:

@qewsouthpost