Oh, cool. Parking fines are probably going up.

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As a commenter noted the last time we wrote about the possibility that expired meter fines were going to increase, “Obey the rules and you’ll be fine.” I’ll take that wisdom one step further: Don’t obey the rules and you’ll be fined. We have pun fun.

At the moment, it’s looking pretty likely that drivers will, in fact, have even more incentive to follow the rules and soon. Yesterday, City Council’s Transportation Committee voted in favor of legislation that would increase the fine for parking at an expired meter by $10 from $25 to $35. Other fun things in the legislation (which you can read here): It adds an extra increment to overtime fees. So, like, currently if you get a ticket and you don’t pay it within 14 days, it doubles to $50. Under the new legislation, the late fee triples after 45 days, going from $35 to $70 (after 14 days) to $95 (after 45). Also, the legislation would allow PARKatlanta to impose a penalty of up to $1,000 on people who fight tickets in municipal court.

What City Council is trying to do is to make up the difference between the $1.5 in profits PARKatlanta currently pays the city and the $5.5 million they were supposed to pay according to the terms of the original contract. And they want to do so without pissing off the business community. (Another proposal involved increasing the number of hours parking would be enforced in certain parts of the city - business owners were chagrined.)

H. Lamar Willis, who submitted the new ordinance, told WSB-TV: “Business leaders said we’re OK. We’re comfortable with fines being doubled, tripled, even quadrupled. We just want to leave the times in place as they are.”

Um, please don’t quadruple fines because some people said they’d be OK with it.

The full council should vote on the proposal on Monday, after some details - “appeals, multiple tickets and collections,” for instance - have been ironed out.