Mar 15, 2026
Drivers in Denver have been grappling with a change to the way parking tickets are disputed that is causing headaches — and might mean some drivers have to pay more than the initial infraction.
As CBS News Colorado reports, the city of Denver changed the process for disputing a parking ticket in September 2025, eliminating a system where tickets could be disputed online (1). CBS reported that although the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said a new system would be in place for 2026, that hasn’t happened.
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This has led to a spike in requests for in-person parking ticket hearings. From January to September 2025, the monthly average for in-person hearings was just six, but that average jumped to 206 per month in Q4 2025.
‘Denver, we have a problem’
CBS spoke with one Denver resident who said she had been ticketed after she parked in a residential permitted area. Danna Lingo has stage 4 cancer, as well as a disability placard for parking, as it can be challenging for her to walk long distances.
She thought her placard allowed her to park in the residential permitted area because some other cities allow it. Denver, however, does not, a lesson that Lingo learned the hard way. She wanted to dispute the ticket because “there should be a provision for ADA parking," Lingo told CBS.
But since there’s no longer an online platform, Lingo needed to visit Denver’s City and County Building in person and make an appointment to dispute the ticket. Then, she’d need to return for the actual hearing.
The city terminated the online option to dispute parking tickets as part of budget cuts. A previous CBS report detailed how the jobs of five parking magistrates, and support staff, were eliminated to save money, which in turn meant the online portal to dispute tickets was shut down (2). The city council has since written a letter to the mayor asking that the jobs be restored.
"These public facing roles are essential for managing increased parking enforcement and ensuring the timely resolution of citations," read a portion of the city council’s letter, CBS reports.
One resident told CBS that while she has the time to go down to the city building to make an appointment, and then return for a hearing, many people don’t.
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“What about the 21-year-old person who has an hourly job and can't get off work, or the person who physically can't get out of their vehicle to go there?” Syl Morgan Smith told CBS (2). “Denver, we have a problem.”
Smith, who is battling cancer, got a ticket after parking in a parking spot for people with disabilities at her oncologist’s office. She got a $350 ticket because she didn’t have her disability placard visible.
She told CBS that she mailed in a protest, but when the parking citation wasn’t cleared up within one month, it doubled to $700. She said that she was trying to schedule an in-person hearing, but that the fee schedule on the ticket showed it would increase to $910 after a second month passed.
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How fighting a ticket can cost you
If you find yourself in a situation where you have to wait for an in-person hearing to dispute a parking ticket, be sure to familiarize yourself with the procedures in your area.
If, like in Denver, the cost of the citation can go up the longer it goes unpaid, check with your municipality whether setting a hearing date puts a pause on the hikes. Be sure you know how long you have after the initial citation to file a protest, in case there are strict time limits; missing a date to file a complaint could also cost you.
Finally, consider whether having to dispute a ticket in-person will cost you more in lost time or wages than the actual ticket. Like Smith said, there are many people for whom it’s just not possible to take time out of the work day to go down to city hall and wait for a parking ticket hearing. And, of course, you’ll likely have to pay for parking at city hall while you’re there to fight your ticket.
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
