MADISON, Wis. -- Winter will soon be here and the city of Madison is trying to be prepared with some new rules and penalties when it comes to parking.

"Last winter was really tough, and it was really tough to get (the streets) all clear, and we had cars all over the place," said Alderman Satya Rhodes-Conway.

Tuesday night the Common Council might vote on a plan to crack down on drivers who don’t move their cars during a snow emergency.

The change would include a larger ticket for offenders.

"Everybody's ticket goes up to $60 dollars," said Conway. "We're not just hitting the downtown people, we're saying, 'If we've got a problem with snow and you're parked in the wrong place and you're keeping us from clearing it, you need to move your car or you're going to get a $60 ticket.'"

"I'm definitely for increasing the fine for the snow emergencies because I think people need to be aware of getting off the street, and it's really important that they clear the sides of the street," said University of Wisconsin-Madison student Linda VanEvenhoven.

But drivers such as Mike Salkin disagree.

Salkin, a UW-Madison student, said he was stuck on the street because the city didn't hold up its end of the bargain.

"I had a parking space down an alley across the street from Regent, and it was so poorly plowed that it completely iced over a couple of times and I had to park on the street," said Salkin. "I got tickets, which I didn't think was terribly fair because it wasn't my job to plow the alley."

To avoid that problem, the city's "snow team" now plans to open public parking ramps and lots overnight when a snow emergency strikes.

"I hope we can get enough education to make people realize that it's really important for safety to get the streets clean," said Conway.

The higher parking fines need to be approved by the Common Council.

The city also hopes to implement a text message alert system to let drivers know when to move their cars. The technology will be tested this winter to reach out to younger drivers, such as UW students.

The cost for one year of the service is around $23,000.

The city streets department and Metro transit will also be working to communicate any problems with snowed-in bus stops.