Govt proposes to raise parking meter charges and fines for traffic violations
發佈日期: 2025-07-09 21:07
TVB News
The government has proposed multiple transport-related fee hikes.
They include doubling parking meter charges to a maximum hourly rate of 16 dollars.
There will be adjustments too to private electric vehicle licence fees.
Starting September 28th, the parking meter fees, now 2 dollars per 15 minutes, will be doubled to 4 dollars.
This man says it has been many years without a fee adjustment, and it is understandable to have a bit of a hike taking into account inflation and rising parking costs.
This man says it's unreasonable to double the charges as government parking should not be profit-driven like private car parks.
The Transport and Logistics Bureau says the goal is to improve the turnover of metered parking spaces and better manage limited roadside parking resources.
For goods vehicles, buses and tour buses, the parking meter charges remain unchanged.
The proposed fee hike will be gazetted next Friday and submitted to the Legislative Council on July 23rd.
Authorities also want to raise fixed penalty fines for traffic violations, which have been unchanged for 31 years.
The fixed penalty for illegal parking has been proposed to go up from 320 dollars to 400.
Speeding fines may rise from the current range of 320 to 1,000 dollars to between 480 and 1,500 dollars, depending on the speed in excess.
Entering a yellow box junction illegally may be punishable by a fine of 600 dollars, up from 400 dollars.
The relevant amendments will be put to a vote at the legislature on July 30th with the effective dates specified in each individual proposal.
And starting in November, licence fees for private electric vehicles may no longer be based on their weight but on their rated power output.
The Transport and Logistics Bureau says using weight to calculate fees has resulted in licence fees for EVs being on average six times lower than those for petrol-powered vehicles.
So, a new system with a five-tier fee structure has been proposed.
EVs with less than 75 kW rated output will pay 1,500 dollars a year. Those over 225 kW will be charged 5,000 dollars.
Starting in March 2027, the rates will increase gradually over four years.
Authorities say even after the suggested full fee hikes, EV licence fees will still be 25 percent lower than those for petrol cars.
The government says it is keeping its target of ending new registrations of petrol private vehicles by 2035, aiming to encourage a gradual transition to electric mobility.
