Parking Meter Deal Proves Daley Hates Drivers

Mayor Daley hates drivers.

He has to. There's no other way to explain it.

Or perhaps it's just that car drivers are easy to pick on.

Whatever it is, Mayor Daley has body slammed the Chicago driver this year.

The final body blow that left Chicago drivers unconscious, bloody and drooling on the canvas mat of 2008, came Tuesday when the mayor announced the $1.16 billion dollar deal to privatize Chicago's parking meter system.

The city has been like a fish out of water from a budget standpoint, flopping around on the bottom of the boat gasping for precious air, or in Chicago's case--hard cold cash.

Luckily for Mayor Daley, Chicago Parking Meter LLC's billion and change saved the day.

But this billion dollar bailout comes at a price. A price paid by drivers.

It's no surprise that parking meter rates were going to go up with this deal. But the rate of increase is like electro-shocking an infant. Initially, most meters (the ones that charge 25 cents per hour) are going to quadruple within 12 months. In five years time, parking meters will be charging drivers anywhere from $2.00 to $6.50 per hour depending on your location.

These rate increases will again, most profoundly affect the people who can least afford them--the poor and lower middle class. People with money can always take a taxi, or afford valet parking or a parking garage. While public transportation can be a low cost alternative, many people need a car for work or to transport children.

These increases will also have an adverse effect on the local economy. Low cost parking meters was a great incentive for people living outside the city to come, visit and spend their money at Chicago businesses. Much like the 10% sales tax, consumers will go elsewhere to spend their cash.

But these increased rates will also discourage city denizens to shop outside their primary neighborhoods. Why drive to that cool new restaurant or boutique when it costs so much to park and you chance a parking ticket every time you drive?

The increased enforcement that is inevitable with this deal will also discourage car travel and thus local spending.

But when you take this parking meter deal, and look back at what else the mayor has done to kick drivers in the ribs in 2008, it's jaw dropping.

*Lowered the Denver boot threshold from three to a paltry two unpaid tickets.

*An additional 22% premium tacked onto unpaid parking tickets to cover the alleged cost of collections.

*Installing over 50 red light cameras in 2008, with at least another 50 for 2009, 2010 and 2011 reaching a goal of having red light cameras at a minimum of 10% of all city intersections.

*Initiating a plan to install cameras on all city street sweepers to nail drivers parked in violation of street cleaning bans.

*General increases to the cost of parking ticket fines.

*Increased parking enforcement and the planned hiring of 50 new parking enforcement aides.

*Increase in parking garage taxes.

*Converting all 4,000 park district free parking spaces into metered spaces.

*Adding 1,250 new metered parking spaces to the near west side.

When you look at all these policy changes implemented by Mayor Daley over the past 12 months, you can see that Chicago is the most anti-driver city in the entire U.S.

The truth of the matter is that Mayor Daley and his administration have mismanaged the budget and allowed spending to get disastrously out of control.

To be fair, some cuts were made. But instead of making a sincere effort to control spending, the mayor decided to balance the 2009 city budget on the aching backs of drivers.

In my humble Parking Geek opinion, the Mayor has unfairly targeted and overburdened the Chicago driver.

I truly hope Mayor Daley finds someone else to pick on in 2009. Because we won't be able to bear any more.

Comments

[1343]

I agree with the Parking Ticket Geek. Daley hates drivers. It all started with those local neighborhood parking permits. They were meant to help drivers park more easily, but instead they are only a source of revenue and aggravation! I live near Wrigley Field and I can't park any easier than before the permits. There is no enforcement. And there's no cooperation between neighborhoods. If I want to dine at a restaurant or shop at a store during permit hours, I can't park on neighborhood streets...I have to pay (again) for valet or a cab or garage parking. The streets belong to everyone and we should go back to the first-come, first-served policy for neighborhood street parking!

[pjean]

Those of you who live in your suburbs and only come into the city on the weekend should also shut your trap. You have no idea how expensive it has gotten here. Places where there weren't any meters are now loaded with these stupid meters. We aren't asking for FREE things but we are entitle to be able to afford to live without being taxed to death. So unless you live in the city and are faced with all of those fees, keep your comments to yourself because you simply have no clue until you have walked a mile in our shoes. To the idiot who made the comment about using public transportation, let me ask you this. Have you ever had to take the #3 Kind Drive bus. Imagine being at a bus stop and seeing five #151 buss go by for every ONE king drive bus which is already crowded before it gets to you. Where the heck is the fairness in that do we deserve this type of service for what we freaking pay????

[pjean]

I'm sure most of you making the dumb comments of "paying" your fare share do not live in Chicago. That stupid red light camera is not always accurate. In my case it was raining and the roads were slick I was driving at the speed of 23 miles in a 35 mile per hour zone. Came off a hill and tried to stop when the light turned yellow and my car kept sliding to the center of the intersection. Now should I have stayed in the center of the intersection until the light changed back to green or should I proceed to clear up the intersection. This is coming from a person who has been driving for 16 years and have NEVER had a moving violation or any tickets of any kind. I recently received in the mail a $100 ticket showing that I was stuck in the intersection. Of course I'm fighting the ticket but some of the stuff that the mayor is doing so he can raise enough money to get the 2016 olympics is crazy. I live in the area that they are thinking of having calling Olympic Village.

[itakethetrain]

Yeah, heaven forbid we ask drivers to pay their fair share of the conveniences we practically give away to them! Better to make the one-third of Chicagoans who don't own cars help pay for an expensive habit.

I enjoy a fantastic quality of life without a car -- in fact, that's why I moved to Chicago six years ago. There's no reason I should continue to subsidize your parking -- and that's what ridiculously underpriced parking is -- a subsidy. The garage next door to my building charges $6/hr. to park. But if you snag a subsidized spot in front of the garage, you only pay 25 cents per hour. Why is the city pricing it so far below the market rate? Why don't we do the same with housing? You can't argue that low-income residents need cheap parking but don't need cheap housing. Why is cheap parking such a high priority on the subsidy scale while we fail to provide adequate housing for many residents?

We also need to raise parking rates because we don't have enough supply to meet the demand for almost-free parking without blanketing the entire city in asphalt. If we make free parking a priority, Chicago will end up looking like Schaumburg. And that's not what cities are about. We're about providing decent quality of life for all people -- not just for people in cars.

Cheryl is right. It's really the transit riders who are getting shafted.

[mergina]

This mayor and his city council are so dimwitted, the ONLY way they can raise revenue is to ticket, tow, boot, tax, and fine the citizens of chicago, as well as all who visit here.

This plan is being structured for the city to be able to issue MORE TICKETS, MORE TOWS, MORE BOOTS, AND HIGHER CITY STICKERS...and they will no longer have to pay to maintain the hardware needed to generate it all. If you removed ever car from chicago, these thugs would just come up with another dimwitted manner in which to get it $$$ out of you. The moral of this story is this...IT'S TIME TO PACK IT UP AND MOVE OUT OF THIS OVERPRICED TOWN.

[EAM]

He must also hate downtown residents. Yah - it may be easy to rationalize rate hikes if all you see downtown as is a sometime-destination. Try living down here and dealing with this. And the "get rid of your car" argument is baloney, because both the region's and Chicago's transit are shoddy and the city's too sprawling for a practical car-less existence... unless you have nothing going on in your life, or can afford to hire a limo every other day.

[Cheryl44]

I've lived without a car since 1990. It's actually not that difficult. Car share programs like I-Go and Zipcar have made it easier in the last half decade. Before that it could be inconvenient at times to be carless. Now very few people have an excuse to own a car at all.

[indiana46278]

I think the parking money should go to transit.

[dreadylocks]

If parking meters are privatized, how can the city of chicago enforce it? Do they still get to write out the tickets?

[mergina]

yep. and the tows. and the boots. They are making street parking for free VIRTUALLY NON-EXISTENT in this gangster town. Daley is a callous thug, make no bones about it. He is a mob boss whose gang resides at City Hall. His gutless city council bow to his every whim. Sickening.

[itakethetrain]

Tell me about it! Also non-existent are free groceries, free transit, and free houses. I mean, who wants to live in a city without free groceries? Isn't it the city's responsibility to make sure we don't have to pay for the things we use?

[mergina]

We live in the city with the HIGHEST sales tax in the land, high property taxes, we are fined, ticketed, booted and taxed into poverty living here, and now our illustrious gangster mayor wants to privatize the city to $$$Greedy Predators$$$ so he can get his further cut. The mayor, and the city council that bend over for him, are thieves, period. They NEVER FAIL to write themselves nice fat raises. The projects they work on benefit friends and cronies. I guess it is business as usual here in duh city of shi#cago.

[PerryWhite]

So who will give out the parking ticket, and who will pay them?

[DinkSinger]

Apparently the anonymous Geek feels he has a right to run red lights, block street sweepers, ignore parking regulation and rip-up tickets. The first six kicks in the ribs he lists do not affect law-abiding drivers at all. Imagine the nerve of a city that enforces its laws!

Unlike Geek, I have actually used public transportation so I can report that people can get to work and transport children on buses and trains. In fact a lot of poor and lower-middle class people do just that. So do some of us a little better off who hate global warming, dependence on foreign oil, congestion and air pollution.

[Cheryl44]

Daley hates transit riders too.