If St. Paul motorists ever needed more incentive to move their vehicles out of the way of snowplows, consider this: the city is raising and standardizing towing fees citywide.

“Ultimately, it will put more tow trucks out on the streets,” said St. Paul Public Works Department spokeswoman Lisa Hiebert.

Those fees, which currently vary from $90 to $120 depending upon the tow company and area of the city involved, will now be $175 across the board.

That’s before an additional $80 in St. Paul police administrative charges, $20 in taxes, and a $56 parking ticket for violating city ordinances. Tow lots charge $15 per day for storage.

All in all, car owners can expect to shell out at least $275 just to get a vehicle out of one of the city’s two impound lots. That’s up from $202 last winter and $220 the year before.

The St. Paul City Council approved the changes Wednesday.

Why the increase?

In short, it’s gotten harder for the city’s two main contractors — Bobby & Steve’s and Guardian Towing, also known as Yuba Transportation — to attract, retain and manage subcontractors.

“Tow performance last year during snow emergencies was abysmal and very much adversely affected the ability of our plow drivers to clear the roadways effectively and efficiently,” said Beverly Farraher, public works operations manager, in a Nov. 21 letter to council president Amy Brendmoen. “We have determined that we cannot compete with other tow business across the region unless we raise our tow rates to be minimally competitive.”

A TOW MANAGEMENT COMPANY?

Representatives of various city departments plan to meet with public works officials on Dec. 11 to discuss what other options might be available to improve towing procedure.

One idea is to hire a third-party tow management company, such as AutoReturn.com, to oversee the overall process from dispatching to data collection.

Residents have for years complained that St. Paul fails to tow enough cars in low-income areas, leading to speculation that the city fears those cars will clog up the impound lots for days, if not weeks, because their owners don’t have the cash to get them released.

In mid-April 2018, the city chose not to tow cars during the sixth snow emergency of the season, noting at the time that Barge Channel Road lot would be overwhelmed and the other lot was not readily available that late in the season.

Others believe tow drivers focus on neighborhoods closest to the impound lots on Barge Channel Road and near the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in order to win a volume bonus.

A Pioneer Press analysis of tow data generally confirmed as much in 2003, as did a follow-up in 2007.

For years, drivers earned $5 per vehicle after 225 vehicles had been removed in certain designated areas. That, however, is now a thing of the past.

A new contract amendment states that the “city will no longer pay incentive payments for towing performance,” and St. Paul will instead resort to penalties — a 10 percent reduction in tow fees if drivers fall below minimums set within each of the city’s four tow zones.