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Armed with steeper fines and a more sweeping, zero-tolerance policy against wrongly parked vehicles, the city’s hoping to accelerate its spring street cleaning.

A fine hiked from $50 to $120 this year will now be automatically imposed on those who fail to remove their vehicles from streets in areas and during times specified on green street-sweeping-notice signs, said city transportation spokeswoman Brittany Kustra.

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“The (the signs) will be posted at entrances to communities,” said Kustra. “Voluntarily moving your vehicles is over.”

In the past, only those failing to move their vehicles in specifically-targeted areas with notoriously low compliance, and marked with small white signs, had their cars towed and were given fines, she said.

But a constant chorus of complaints from residents frustrated over gravel-strewn streets (due to neighbours’ failure to move their vehicles) and the city’s fatigue over-re-sweeping led to the changes, said Kustra.