Sarah Peterson was visiting her dad at the Ottawa Hospital last fall when she was slapped with a $40 parking ticket on Ruskin Street. She was over her paid parking time by 15 minutes.

“I was chatting with my dad and all of a sudden I realized that about an hour had passed, I came outside and I had a parking ticket,” Peterson said. “I don’t think it’s very compassionate to the people who are visiting someone who is sick or dying.”

Ruskin Street — which runs in front of Ottawa’s Civic Hospital and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute — ranks among the most heavily ticketed streets in the city. Over 3,333 parking tickets were issued in 2014 alone, according to City of Ottawa data.

“Nine o’clock comes and I see the Green Hornet go by my window. It’s like they’re on a schedule,” said Karen Wright, president of the Civic Hospital Neighbourhood Association.

While the hospital has four parking lots, those spots come at a high price. The hospital charges $6 an hour, with a daily maximum of $13.

But at just $3 an hour, parking on Ruskin Street is more appealing for hospital patients, visitors and staff. Cars can park for up to two hours — and those spots are limited. Instead, many visitors will end up parking in a no-parking zone to avoid paying.

However, Wright said she thinks many visitors don’t know they are parking illegally.

“People see cars parked on the street and think there must be free parking. They are lured in and don’t look at the signs,” Wright said. ”They walk away thinking they scored great parking, but don’t realize they parked behind cars that have street or accessible parking permits.”

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper said parking in the Civic Hospital neighbourhood has been a “persistent problem” and being “consistent in enforcement” is how by-law officers respond.

“Parking enforcement tends to be driven by first: where by-law know there is a problem, and second: by complaints,” Leiper said. “There have been very restrictive parking rules around the Civic Hospital for as long as I can remember.”

Ruskin Street has inched up the city’s most ticketed list by four spots in the past three years. In 2014, the parking ticket fees tallied almost $191,000.

Melrose Avenue, adjacent to Ruskin Street, is also a parking ticket haven for by-law officers with 2,250 handed out in 2014.

“I think the by-law officers target that area because they know people are going to go over their time. Maybe it’s so they can reach their quota of parking tickets,” said Peterson. “But they aren’t treating that space like they would treat any other residential area. They are picking on the people who are the most vulnerable.”

But Troy Leeson, the city’s by-law manager of parking enforcement, said residential streets near the Civic are monitored the same as other streets in the city.

“There has been no focused parking enforcement effort on Ruskin Street or Melrose Avenue,” wrote Leeson in an emailed reply.

In the past few years, the Civic Hospital has added off-site parking and shuttles for staff to alleviate some of the hospital’s parking pressures.

Now, the Ontario government might be stepping in. They want to make visiting loved ones in the hospital more affordable by introducing a program to cap hospital parking rates for frequent visitors, an initiative that Wright supports.

“There needs to be a discussion about fees,” Wright said. “If you are going [to the hospital] for weeks or months on end, it becomes very expensive for families.”