When someone receives a parking ticket, it indicates that they have parked within a restricted space, they have parked in an unauthorized manner, or they have parked at an expired parking meter. Often, there are two reasons for parking laws and tickets. The first is because traffic in downtown areas increased and uncontrolled parking slowed the progress of traffic in many metropolitan areas. Merchants complained that their businesses were not being frequented because people could not get to them - often because there was no place to park. In addition, the revenue in cities dropped, causing them to look for a new source of income. Parking laws and tickets helped both situations. Boston alone issued 1.5 million parking tickets in 2007. They also increased their fines for illegal parking in recent years to insure that both those conditions would continue to be adequately addressed. Boston drivers should take advantage of the legal parking options, which include 7,300 parking meters, 34 municipal lots, and 134,000 spaces in private lots.