Updated April 14, 2025 at 2:45 p.m.
On April 1, the street-sweeping fleet started rolling across the city again. That also meant the city started enforcing its seasonal parking rules, banning parking on various blocks each day to give the sweepers space to work.
And, as usual, a lot of us forgot to move our cars. Walking out onto Logan Street near our office, I spotted a whole row of yellow envelopes stuck in car door handles, like so many unwanted prom corsages.
I pulled data from the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure to get a sense of the ticketing carnage.
- On April 1, the city ticketed 2,879 vehicles for street sweeping violations.
- That’s a significant spike in ticketing. In comparison, the city tagged about 1,100 vehicles for all parking violations on a typical weekday last month.
So, at least on the first day of sweeping, the number of street sweeping tickets tripled the volume of tickets over the previous month.
Unsurprisingly, the hottest spots for ticketing were clustered in Capitol Hill and other central Denver neighborhoods, where the parking is free but the rules still apply. The block where Denverite and CPR staffers usually park collected 15 tickets all by itself, so … we’re chipping in.
The early season spike
Nancy Kuhn, a spokesperson with the city transportation department, confirmed there often is a spike in ticketing early in the season, followed by a decrease in the middle and an increase as winter approaches again.
In 2024, the city issued about 137,000 tickets for street sweeping violations, representing about $6.9 million of potential city revenue.
Data from 2024 shows that, for the first Tuesdays of the month, the highest number of street sweeping tickets were in April, May and July, with a drop-off into the fall.
Looking at the data did raise one question for me: If thousands of people are blocking the way, how are the street sweepers actually sweeping the streets?
Kuhn said it’s a matter of patience.
“In all areas, the sweepers work around parked cars best they can,” she wrote in an email.
It’s hard to tell what causes the variations in ticketing, she added.
“We may have people remembering to move their cars one month, then forgetting the next, or someone could go out of town for summer vacation and forget about sweeping. Some people who live in high demand, heavily parked areas might feel a parking ticket is more manageable than finding another place to park on their sweeping day. School schedules are likely a factor as well,” she wrote in an email.
How to avoid a parking ticket in Denver
It’s an easy enough mistake to make. The signs require some parsing — is today the first Wednesday of the month? — and the warnings can fade into the background in those sweeper-less months.
But there are ways to save yourself a $50 fine. The city offers an online tool that will show you the schedule for an address, and it can even send you alerts before your sweeping day. Residents of some blocks make a tradition of posting more obvious signs. It is the topic of countless news stories and online posts. Personally, I set a reminder on my calendar.
Street sweeping season continues through November. As city officials point out, it improves air quality and keeps dirt and debris from clogging the city’s creeks and sewers. That debris also includes unwanted chemicals like lead, chloride, zinc, copper, phosphorus and mercury.
The city previously estimated that its sweeper fleet removes about 12,000 pounds of lead from the streets. And, weirdly enough, the city’s fleet of Dulevo brand sweepers (including cute little bike lane sweepers) was at the center of a bidding scandal back in 2019.
Editor's note: This article was updated with additional data about street sweeping tickets.
