Denver is raking in significantly more money from parking tickets than it did just five years ago — largely because of added meters, overnight downtown parking hours, technology that speeds up ticketing and hiked street-sweeping fines.

A Denver Post analysis of parking-citation data found that collections from tickets and penalties reached $30.5 million last year.

Since 2009, the annual haul has risen 53 percent, even as the number of citations grew more modestly. With central Denver growing ever denser, the pesky tickets that make parking a perennial headache — but which also help keep scarce spaces available — are unlikely to abate.

Denver’s parking-ticket income, while a small sliver of the city’s $1 billion operating budget, helps pad the budget. It goes into the general fund, available for any use.

INTERACTIVE: Click to explore an interactive graphic about parking tickets

Add in users’ payments for regular meter time — $11.3 million — and street parking last year brought in $41.8 million, which would be enough cash to fund the city’s entire library system or its Technology Services Department.

“I’m surprised that it’s increased this much,” said City Councilman Charlie Brown, who several years ago suggested that enforcement had been amped up to plug the city’s deficit. He didn’t go that far this time, but said he has heard complaints from constituents that tickets for vehicles that hadn’t been moved far enough after the two-hour time limit elapsed seemed overbearing.

Last year, the city issued 683,884 citations for meter violations, parking in tow-away zones (including on sweeping days), license-plate violations, exceeding two-hour limits and dozens of other infractions.

GRAPH: Denver street parking income

Denver parking-enforcement officials cite a variety of factors that drive recent revenue growth:

• An expansion of parking meters, with multispace kiosks converted to meters in Cherry Creek North and new meters installed near Union Station and in other growing areas. The city has 6,383 active meters, up by about a third from 4,825 meters in 2010.

• Doubling the street-sweeping fine to $50 in 2011, matching the fine for parking in a tow-away zone. Street sweeping takes place on designated days from April through November in most areas and year-round downtown.

• The use of more technology to speed up some types of ticketing, from agents cruising on three-wheeled “chariots” on some routes to license-plate readers that, since 2012, have helped agents enforce two-hour limits on non-metered streets. Those tickets increased 23 percent in a year.

• The conversion to credit card-reading “smart meters” led to a rare dip in citations in 2010 — because the new technology made it easier to buy meter time. But citations shot back up in 2011. That same year, the city expanded downtown meter hours to allow overnight parking. No time limit applies from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., but confusion about rules and rates still results in tickets.

Denver resident Kevin Dalton blamed what he considered a deceiving meter label for the $25 ticket he got downtown at 11:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday. A half-hour later, after midnight Sunday, it would have been a free spot.

“I’ve parked downtown after 10 for free forever,” he said. “I guess we need to read the fine print.”

GRAPHIC: Parking citations back on upswing

When tickets heat up

The Post’s analysis found that some factors change little: If you park at Denver International Airport, in Lower Downtown or near the 16th Street Mall, your chances of getting a ticket for a violation are high.

Tickets tend to spike in warmer months, as more drivers venture downtown. And failing to move a vehicle on street-sweeping day is a $50 mistake made more than 100,000 times a year.

As in many cities, Denver officials long have battled the perception that parking enforcement is a backdoor way to raise money from unhappy customers.

For Matthew J. Current, a $25 meter-violation ticket he received while attending a concert “shows how mindlessly people are being ticketed downtown and how insipid the practices have become.” His Honda coupe was protruding a few feet past the meter, he said, into an empty loading zone in front of a closed building. He said the parking agent should have had more pressing concerns that night, even if he was in the wrong.

“There’s no logic, no rational analysis — it’s just this ‘Here are the rules, break them and we fine you’ approach that is honestly socially irresponsible,” Current wrote to The Post in an e-mail.

Others who contacted The Post railed against parking agents’ penchant for issuing $75 tickets for expired license plates or missing front plates. And some complained that fighting what they perceived as a bogus ticket was fruitless.

But Denver Right of Way Enforcement officials say there’s a rationale behind their sometimes-sticklerish approach. They train parking agents to exercise some judgment, they said, if not as much discretion as drivers and even some council members, including Brown and Jeanne Robb, would like.

VIDEO: Parking agent Derek Rapenchuk issuing tickets

Parking agents’ mandate, officials say, is to keep streets accessible and safe, enforce laws and encourage turnover of street spaces in busy areas.

“There’s a lot of competition for a finite number of parking places,” said Tina Scardina, Denver’s director of permitting and parking enforcement. “If there were no restrictions, then people wouldn’t move. … (And) it doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t any enforcement.”

A double surprise

The driver of an aging blue Toyota truck parked at a meter on Broadway near Civic Center was in for a double surprise when he returned Wednesday afternoon.

Derek Rapenchuk, 31, a Denver parking agent for just over a year, stuck a $75 ticket under the wiper blade because the Pennsylvania license plate had expired in August.

The agent continued walking the blocks south of the downtown park, issuing 10 tickets for expired meters and other violations in an hour. He also gave a few friendly warnings when drivers were present.

Then he came across that blue Toyota truck again.

“He’s still there,” Rapenchuk said. And the meter had expired. So he wrote another ticket, this time for $25.

Rapenchuk is among 50 full-time parking agents — plus seven part-timers on call — who ticket vehicles. It’s a high-turnover job that starts at about $18 an hour. Most have been on the job five years or less.

MAP: A parking agent’s busy day

Rapenchuk says he enjoys it, despite the rare heated confrontation. That happens, he said, less often than he expected when he switched from a hotel parking valet job.

“I get to talk to people. I get to help people,” he said. “I’d say I give people directions more than I get bad feedback from someone directly.”

Ebb and flow

Enforcement manager Dominic Vaiana said the agents don’t have quotas, although their bosses monitor records to ensure they’re busy issuing tickets.

Some do so in rapid fire, especially when enforcing street-sweeping restrictions. The highest-ticketing agent last year blitzed out 20,129 citations, valued at $712,875.

Overall citations have ebbed and flowed over the past decade. But last year’s total came close to hitting the most recent high-water mark — 686,721 — set in 2003, the year that affordable-parking champion John Hickenlooper was elected mayor. The city collected $16.5 million from citations that year.

The city then made parking free on Sundays and slashed meter rates in busy areas from $1.50 an hour to $1. Citations dropped more than 15 percent in two years, and revenue followed suit.

But both then began rising again. The trend has continued under Mayor Michael Hancock, who took office in mid-2011.

INTERACTIVE: Click to explore an interactive graphic about parking tickets

This year’s budget included a forecast that citations probably would increase again. The reason? More efforts focused on Sunday enforcement to satisfy safety and community concerns.

Indeed, several neighborhood and merchant associations, from Cherry Creek North to Capitol Hill to West Highland, have conferred with the city to tailor restrictions, enforcement and other tools to reduce parking pressures in those high-traffic areas. And Highland United Neighbors Inc. plans to set up a parking task force in coming weeks to try to get a handle on problems in that burgeoning area, president Rebecca Hunt said.

The Post’s analysis found significant drops in some categories, a few by more than 50 percent, over the past five years. Among them: parking in no-parking areas, residential-permit zones, handicap spots and loading zones; parking too close to driveways and fire hydrants; or parking more than 18 inches from the curb.

Here, city officials draw a simple lesson.

Scardina said a single ticket could be enough to deter a repeat violation in those cases: “Sometimes, the best way I learn something is when I get in trouble for it.”

Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or twitter.com/denverJonMurray

Most common tickets in 2013

40 percent: Expired meter ($25)

22 percent: Tow-away zone, including street-sweeping restrictions ($50)

16 percent: License-plate violation ($75)

8 percent: Exceeding time limit in non-metered area ($25)

3 percent: Other prohibited parking, including residential-permit zone ($25)

Budget

Denver’s Right of Way Services, which includes street-parking enforcement, has a $13.8 million budget this year.

Using “Denver Boot”

Wheel clamps, named after Denver because it was the first city to use them, can be applied to a car to immobilize it if the owner has three unpaid tickets. Last year, the city used the boot 389 times a month, about 90 times a week. The city also uses a collection agency and a vender to help collect unpaid tickets older than a year. Officials say 60 percent of citations are paid within 20 days and 88 percent are paid eventually.

Sources: Denver Post analysis, Denver Public Works Department.

Viewing on a mobile device? Click here to explore an interactive graphic about parking tickets.