How much cash is Hamilton still waiting on for unpaid parking tickets?

The City of Hamilton is still waiting on more than $415,000 in unpaid parking tickets from last year, according to newly released municipal data.

Parking enforcement officers handed out 125,801 tickets across Steeltown last year, said James Buffett, the city's manager of parking enforcement and school safety, in an email to The Spectator.

The data was first reported on by CBC Hamilton and was later obtained by The Spectator.

Just shy of 100,000 of those tickets have been paid, according to the city - bringing in a little more than $5,369,429 to municipal coffers, according to Buffett.

Data provided by the city shows that the number of parking tickets issued by officers is on the rebound from the height of the pandemic, which saw most enforcement put on hold as they were redeployed to help with other emergency operations efforts.

Back in 2020, there were 96,462 tickets handed out, while in 2021, it was 99,370 fines issued - compare those numbers to 2019, which saw 142,398 tickets doled out, making it the busiest year in the last five years, according to the data.

Where were the most ticketed areas?

The latest data shows that some of the most problematic areas have remained consistent over the last three years. The Spectator has broken down the numbers, which also includes data previously obtained by the newspaper.

• King Street West remains the most highly ticketed stretch of road in the city, with 5,072 tickets issued on the street last year. Compare that to 2019, which saw 5,115 tickets issued on the street. Last year, most of the tickets on King Street West were concentrated in Westdale, with approximately 1,861 fines issued in the neighbourhood, according to the city.

• King Street East came in second last year, with 3,268 tickets issued on the thoroughfare. In 2019, there were 2,630 tickets handed out on the street.

• Coming in third was James Street North, which saw 2,612 tickets handed out on the street last year. In 2019, there were 2,736 fines issued on the street.

• Charlton Avenue East came in fourth last year, with 1,823 fines doled out on the street, but the street did not make the top four in 2019.

• And Victoria Avenue North came in fifth, with 1,728 tickets issued on the street - however, that's much lower than in 2019, which saw 2,577 fines issued there, landing it in fourth place.

Fallon Hewitt is a reporter at The Spectator. fhewitt@thespec.com