Members of the Denver City Council are proposing new guardrails for how the city spends revenue from parking meter fees amid a spike in traffic deaths last year and what they call a “stretch” by the mayor’s administration in how it uses the dollars.
The draft proposal, brought by Councilwomen Flor Alvidrez and Shontel Lewis, would specify the exact programs Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration could use the Transportation and Mobility Special Revenue Fund to pay for. The fund takes in money from a $1 increase in hourly parking meter fees imposed in 2021.
That rate change is expected to generate $12.5 million in 2027.
“We think this has been stretched,” Alvidrez said about the use of the tranche of dollars during a committee meeting early last week.
The special revenue fund is described in the city’s budget as a “dedicated support for transportation and mobility programs and projects related to bicycles, sidewalks, safety and transit improvements.” At the time it was created, the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said 20% of the funding would be spent on new bike infrastructure, 20% on sidewalk builtout and 20% on safety projects, according to earlier reporting from The Denver Post. The remaining 40% was to go to transit projects.
But Alvidrez and Lewis say the city has gone outside of the intent of that fund to pay for other things, including by with raised lane dividers in 2025.
“The intent is vague enough that they could do what they’re doing,” Alvidrez said. “I would say they’re not technically doing something wrong. I would say the spirit of the ordinance is not being followed.”
the city also set aside $8.75 million from the special revenue fund for “parking enforcement, parking management and traffic asset software.” That included money to pay for a new parking ticket appeals system — which is still pending — after the city laid off its five parking magistrates last year.
Since then, residents who believe they received an erroneous parking ticket have had no other option but to go to court to appeal the ticket.
“Parking isn’t mobility,” Alvidrez said in an interview. “Taking money away from the mobility needs when we have such limited, dedicated funding … is very concerning.”
Nancy Kuhn, a spokesperson for DOTI, said those budget actions were “in the spirit of keeping programs important to the public up and running.”
“All the proposed 2026 adjustments/expenses, such as the use of funds to restore the online parking citation dispute program, went through the council budget process transparently,” she wrote in a statement. “They are allowed per the existing ordinance language, which was intentionally written to be broad since important transportation work and advancements in Denver’s transportation system are not only carried out through capital dollars.”
Lewis and Alvidrez want to add language to the city’s code that would specify how those dollars should be spent.
Under a draft of their proposal, which they , the dollars would go only toward helping implement certain street safety plans like , which seeks to eliminate all traffic fatalities and injuries in Denver. The dollars would also support creating safe routes for children on their way to school, transit access, and bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
Kuhn said the way the ordinance would be written could impact the city’s microtransit shuttle service, crossing guards, automated speed cameras and the proposed parking citation dispute program.
“DOTI shares the council’s underlying goals but is concerned that the ordinance as written is too restrictive,” she wrote.
The city saw a surge in traffic fatalities last year, with 94 people dying on local streets. So far this year, there have been .
The proposed ordinance, which the sponsors will likely tweak before the full council considers it, also names specific safety infrastructure that the fund could be used for, including protected bike lanes, speed bumps and dedicated bus lanes.
In 2022, the first year the new fund appeared in the budget, it included possible uses for the dollars, including building more bike infrastructure, repairing sidewalks, improving street safety and adding transit amenities.
Lewis and Alvidrez presented the draft ordinance during the city’s Budget and Policy Committee, which is meant for discussion of potential proposals and doesn’t require any votes. The proposal will likely come back to a council committee for a vote sometime in late August or September.
