From to­day, tow­ing of ve­hi­cles parked il­le­gal­ly in the cap­i­tal city will re­sume, this in­cludes ar­eas in Port-of-Spain, Wood­brook, Ari­api­ta Av­enue, St James, and the West­ern Main Road.

Wreck­ing was sus­pend­ed in the cap­i­tal in 2020 dur­ing the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic.

But nu­mer­ous com­plaints from com­muters, taxi dri­vers, and some busi­ness own­ers about the in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing and traf­fic con­ges­tion in Port-of-Spain pushed May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne to find a so­lu­tion.

“We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to play a role in law en­force­ment,” he said.

The re­vamp­ing of tow­ing will be spear­head­ed by the City Po­lice in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Dur­ing the coun­cil’s month­ly Statu­to­ry Meet­ing held at City Hall, Knox Street on Tues­day, Al­leyne said spe­cif­ic ar­eas of fo­cus iden­ti­fied in­clud­ed; park­ing on street cor­ners, park­ing on pedes­tri­an cross­ings, park­ing in front of fire hy­drants, park­ing in front of peo­ple’s gate­ways and park­ing on bus stops.

“The oth­er area of fo­cus of course will be the con­tra­ven­tion of any road mark­ing of sig­nage, no park­ing sig­nage in par­tic­u­lar,” he ex­plained.

Apart from tack­ling the un­law­ful park­ing, the May­or said the re­sump­tion will al­so as­sist them in their prepa­ra­tion for the rainy sea­son.

If towed, the fine is set at 500 dol­lars, with an ad­di­tion­al 200 dol­lars every day the ve­hi­cle re­mains im­pound­ed.

This time, the city cor­po­ra­tion im­ple­ment­ed a mech­a­nism in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTPS that al­lows mo­torists to col­lect their ve­hi­cles af­ter of­fice hours.

“Once the im­pound lot has closed for the day, a mem­ber of the gen­er­al pub­lic will be able to vis­it the Wood­brook po­lice sta­tion to make pay­ment and con­tact the city po­lice, and the city po­lice will open the im­pound lot and al­low you to re­trieve your ve­hi­cle,” he said.

Both the po­lice sta­tion and the im­pound lot can on­ly ac­cept cash pay­ments at this time and if a mem­ber of the pub­lic has an is­sue with their ve­hi­cle Al­leyne said they can con­tact the City Po­lice di­rect­ly at 299-0870 ex­ten­sion four. The line will be avail­able 24/7.

“The next phase now is the park­ing en­force­ment, so the sig­nage has gone back up, we've sen­si­tised the pub­lic, we move now to park­ing en­force­ment and once that’s com­plet­ed we will be well on our way to im­ple­ment­ing paid park­ing,” he said.

In 2023, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­newed his 2016 call for park­ing me­ters in Port of Spain.

Last Month, St James and St Ann’s taxi dri­vers said mo­torists were still il­le­gal­ly park­ing on their taxi stands on Hart Street, Port-of-Spain, even af­ter be­ing warned by the head of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice ACP Suren­dra Sagram­s­ingh.

Work­ers at the Ju­di­cia­ry, Par­lia­ment, Hall of Jus­tice, NALIS, Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, and T&T Reg­i­ment were told to stop park­ing on the taxi stands ear­li­er this month.

How­ev­er, one of the af­fect­ed taxi dri­vers, Jer­ry Sookdeo, said their ap­peals for help were falling on deaf ears. He com­plained that a woman who was il­le­gal­ly parked on the taxi stand ver­bal­ly abused him.