Denver’s street-sweeping program takes tons of dust, trash and leaves off city streets, but it also rakes in cash.
Last year, the city wrote nearly 116,000 tickets — at $20 a pop — to motorists who parked on the wrong side of the street on sweeping days, raising more than $2.3 million in fines.
This year, tickets are $25 for parking in a spot that’s perfectly legal more than 99.2 percent of time. For nine hours a day, eight times a year, Denver residents must remember to make room on their block for city sweepers or pay the price.
In that regard, these tickets are taxes on faulty memories.
Sweeping season began this month and continues through November.
“Our goal is truly to obtain better compliance, not write more tickets,” said Ann Williams, spokeswoman for the Denver Public Works Department.
There are plenty of reminders to help residents avoid tickets, starting with the red-and-white signs on every block, she said.
But don’t tell that to Jody Avila.
One morning last year, she jumped out of her car to mail a letter, and by the time she dashed back less than two minutes later, a parking patrolman was writing a citation.
“Signs are there, but they’re there all the time,” she said. “Nobody reads everything.”
City officials seem to know that too and are trying an array of tactics to remind parkers through the campaign “Show Your Pride, Move Your Ride.”
Residents can sign up for a free “e-minder,” a text message before their sweeping day, at MyMotorMaid .
They also can check the city’s website for a schedule, or they can call Denver’s 311 customer-service line and ask for free “no parking” stickers to put on their calendar. The stickers come in a brochure called “How Not to Get a Parking Ticket.”
Dust fed “brown cloud”
Williams said the outreach is paying off. Tickets for sweeping-day violations have fallen for five straight years — from 130,270 in 2003 to 115,911 in 2007.
Meanwhile, crews last year swept 38,689 cubic yards of debris from 82,043 miles of streets — enough to fill 400 railroad cars, the city estimates.
Cleaning it up takes dust from the air that once fed Denver’s “brown cloud” of air pollution, or would clog storm drains, possibly causing flooding, or wind up in creeks, rivers and reservoirs.
“Street sweeping is helping us keep pollution out of the air and out of rivers, to reach our goal of making the South Platte fishable and swimmable” by 2011, said Michele Weingarden, director of Greenprint Denver, the city’s environmental initiative.
Without the street-sweeping program, a staple in Denver since the 1970s, the city risked federal fines and other sanctions over the protection of air and water, Williams said.
Budget exceeds revenueDenver has 26 street sweepers, plus four in reserve, along with 12 dump trucks. The city recently bought 10 bio-diesel sweepers at $141,251 each.
But tickets don’t pay for the program, Williams said. Although street-sweeping tickets brought in $2.3 million last year, the street- sweeping budget is more than $4 million, from a total public-works budget of $91 million.
On Monday, Dan Koontz stood in line to pay his wife’s ticket at the Wellington Webb Building, one of many she routinely gets for various violations, he said.
“It’s the toll you pay for living in Denver,” he said. “She only gets this one once a month.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
