Calgary doubles number of vehicles ticketed for parking during street cleaning

More tickets are being issued this year for vehicles left out during spring street cleaning, but unless you're the one receiving a ticket, you might not have noticed.

The Calgary Parking Authority has crews following street sweepers, who are issuing tickets through its automated system, meaning tickets are being mailed out to those who forget to move their cars.

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"CPA has switched to the automatic enforcement so we've actually more than doubled the amount of tickets that have been issued this year to residentsso we have taken council's information to heart and we have increased enforcement within the communities," said Calgary's general manager of transportation, Michael Thompson.

In the first three weeks of spring street cleaningin 2018, 5,790 tickets were issued, compared to 2,112 over the same period in 2017. That's more than the total of 3,148 tickets that were issued in all of 2017 for spring cleanup.

But, the number of vehicles towed is down. In the first three weeks of 2018's spring cleanup, 825 were towed. Over the same period in 2017, 1,676 were towed.

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April snowfall delayed the start of the spring sweeping, but Thompson said the City is on track to have the work done by the end of June.

So far, 45 per cent of city streets have been swept.

The City has 30 machines sweeping its more than 16,000 kilometres of paved roads. This year's cleanup runs from April 23 to June 30. The fine for failing to remove a vehicle is $120, $80 if paid within 10 days, or $90 if paid within 30.