Adriana Dorman was basking in her day off when she suddenly remembered: that $100 parking ticket — the one she says was wrongfully issued — was about to double in cost. She pulled out her laptop, thinking it would be easy enough to dispute the citation online, as thousands of Denverites have don e before. Instead, she saw that it wasn’t an option anymore. The only way to fight the ticket was to do so in court. And she would have to drive downtown to even schedule that court appearance. After waiting in line and eventually talking to an attendant, Dorman got her court date. It would be five months until she could tell officials that she had, in fact, paid her vehicle registration fees for the year. The sticker just hadn’t arrived in the mail yet. “It’s (messed) up, it’s a broken system,” she said. “It seems like they’re just hoping you would pay the $100.” Dorman isn’t alone. When Denver officials eliminated the online dispute system as part of citywide budget cuts in September, they forced hundreds of residents into the county court system. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is in the process of creating a new way to dispute tickets digitally, but officials don’t have a firm timeline for when that will be up and running. In the meantime, the demand for court hearings to contest parking tickets in Denver is ballooning. In January 2025, only one person scheduled a hearing to dispute a parking ticket. In December, 145 people did. Most of Denver’s parking tickets cost $35 initally but can range up to $250. If they aren’t paid in the first 20 days, they double. The city issued nearly 400,000 tickets in 2025. The desk where residents can schedule those hearings is only open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Residents sometimes have to wait in long lines — especially around lunchtime — to schedule the hearings. After their wait, they often learn their court dates are months away. Those hearings are also during standard work hours. Liam Ryan almost laughed out loud when he saw a parking ticket on his car in December after a trip to his downtown office, he said. He had an emailed receipt confirming he had paid for parking during that time. After learning he couldn’t submit that online to get the ticket expunged, he went to the county courthouse and waited 90 minutes to learn his scheduled court date: May 7. “It just feels so wrong,” he said. “This increasingly disadvantages people. It’s the type of process where you need to take off work and show up in person to a courthouse. In 2026, that’s so archaic.” Denver County Court laid off all of its parking magistrates in August after Mayor Mike Johnston asked the office to reduce its 2026 budget in response to the city’s $200 million projected budget shortfall. The court then shut down the online dispute system in September. During the 2026 budgeting process last fall, 11 of the 12 City Council members present voted to ask Johnston’s administration to reinstate the online option, calling it an equity issue. Councilwoman Shontel Lewis proposed the request during that meeting in October. “This is the result of a rushed process to cut city services and workforce without proper analysis of the impacts,” Lewis said Monday. Johnston’s office responded to their request by saying the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, which issues the vast majority of those tickets, would make a new system. DOTI Executive Director Amy Ford said in an interview in January that she expects the new online process to be available sometime in 2026. A spokeswoman for the department confirmed that time frame and said the office will be “informing people about it as we get closer.” A spokeswoman for Denver County Court said the city isn’t experiencing any backlog. “As with all court operations, we monitor demand and adjust our resources accordingly. In response to increased requests for parking final hearings, we added extra docket days — now offering hearings on both Mondays and Thursdays — and we have also increased our docket sizes, as needed,” Carolyn Tyler said in an email. Related Articles Denver stops automatically mailing property tax bills as process moves online Fewer homicides, housing surge, less vacant space downtown top Denver mayor’s 2026 goals Denver opens cold-weather shelter at former hotel amid squabble between mayor, council Denver officials say controversial Alameda Avenue changes will get demonstration before design finalized How Denver’s shifting plans for Alameda Avenue created a PR nightmare for Mayor Mike Johnston But the frustrations don’t stop with the long lines. The tickets also aren’t loaded into the court’s system until at least two days after they’re placed on cars. So anyone who shows up to the city the same day that they received a ticket they believe is incorrect is faced with a sign that says they will have to come back later. On an afternoon in late January, a visibly frustrated man entered the court scheduling room and announced he had immediately driven downtown to deal with his ticket and was wondering why the information about the delay wasn’t on the ticket itself. “I love wasting time and money,” he said as he turned around to leave. When a person in line commented that the man seemed angry, an attendant responded: “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot. ...read more read less