Toronto residents keep finding fake parking tickets stuck to their windshields

A wave of fake parking tickets is causing alarm among Toronto drivers.

You may want to take a closer look the next time you see the tell-tale yellow of a parking ticket flapping under your windshield wiper on a Toronto street — you probably didn't violate any parking laws at all.

Instead, you may be the recipient of the latest wave of community outreach by local lobbyist group Citizens of Toronto (CoT), which, according to spokesperson Paul Macchiusi, "is a group of residents and business owners who are paying attention to City decisions and helping people take part in them before they're final."

The current issue at hand? Potential curb lane removal to make way for RapidTO transit priority lanes. Take a closer look at the faux tickets peppering windshields across the city of late, and you'll get an immediate idea of where CoT stands on the issue.

"driving is not a crime!" LMFAOOOOOO https://t.co/cQKBVWVfmx

— rapidly warming girl summer (@latestagewhat) November 12, 2026

Among information on streets where curb lanes have already been removed and those which stand to lose their curb lanes, the tickets feature statements like, "We certify that: Toronto is at war with drivers. Parking and traffic lanes are being eliminated across the city," and "Driving is not a crime!"

Toronto residents online have been quick to critique both CoT's position and the organization's approach to disseminating it, with some even going as far as describing the tickets as "propaganda."

@latestagewhat Drivers are so oppressed 😭😭😮‍💨 https://t.co/STxgZnp0uj

— FlareTop (@flaretopp) November 12, 2026
 

"Having a non-functional public transport is definitely a crime. Fix the public transport and people will stop paying for cars and putting effort into driving for commuting," one X user writes.

"This is such an inefficient way to push propaganda. People won't read your message if you just pretended to give them a parking ticket," writes another.

Macchiusi concedes that the fake parking ticket approach hasn't exactly received warm welcomes from its unsuspecting victims, but that's kind of the point.

"People were startled, and we understand that. Some have filled out the survey and shared real struggles they've been facing because of the changes, some are willing to join the cause and learn more while others were upset that this happened at all," he tells blogTO. 

"Not everyone agrees with us, and that's fine. The point is to get people involved in municipal politics and talking about their streets."

Still, Macchiusi maintains that the issue of curb lane removal affects more people than just drivers. 

"When parking and loading come off a main street, it changes how a business operates and how a delivery gets made. It affects how a customer reaches a shop, or how someone gets a parent to an appointment," he says.

"On Bathurst and Dufferin, 352 paid parking spaces were removed. On Dundas West, the City's own report found a 94 per cent drop in meter transactions and no noticeable increase in transit ridership, and yet in both these scenarios, the city did not measure the cost to commerce. Queen, Dundas and College are next on the City's list."

He is quick to assert that "[Citizens of Toronto] have never been against transit, but people deserve to know what changes are coming to their street and what they cost, before it happens rather than after."

Still, others don't see it that way.

@latestagewhat Traffic is my number one issue. Therefore, I demand that 50% of every main street be devoted to private storage instead of transportation.

— Jeff Slater 🍊 (@jslaterTO) November 13, 2026

This isn't the first time opposition to proposed curb lane removals has caused a stir in the city.

In the spring of 2025, an entire neighbourhood was divided when a "clunky and chaotic" campaign that used AI talking heads posing as local small business owners pushed against RapidTO curb lane removals along Bathurst Street.