Free Sunday Parking: Chicago Parking Meter Deal Gets Early Start With Free Parking In 12 Wards

Free Sunday Parking Starts Early (This Week!) In 12 Wards
UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 30: A parking meter payment machine stands in the central business district of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009. Chicago Parking Meters LLC, majority-owned by Morgan Stanley infrastructure investment funds, paid $1.15 billion for a 75-year lease to run Chicago's 36,000 parking meters, $974 million less than the city would have received if it kept the meters and raised prices. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has pledged that city residents won't pay anything for staging the 2016 Summer Olympics, which organizers say will cost $4.8 billion. Daley may not have the taxpayer support to lease or sell more assets to bolster the municipal budget. (Photo by Frank Polich/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 30: A parking meter payment machine stands in the central business district of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009. Chicago Parking Meters LLC, majority-owned by Morgan Stanley infrastructure investment funds, paid $1.15 billion for a 75-year lease to run Chicago's 36,000 parking meters, $974 million less than the city would have received if it kept the meters and raised prices. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has pledged that city residents won't pay anything for staging the 2016 Summer Olympics, which organizers say will cost $4.8 billion. Daley may not have the taxpayer support to lease or sell more assets to bolster the municipal budget. (Photo by Frank Polich/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Free Sunday parking is hitting 12 Chicago wards a full two weeks earlier than expected.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's revamped deal that would bring free Sunday parking to most neighborhoods in exchange for extended daily meter hours was set to roll out July 1, but according to a release from City Hall, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 20th, 22th, 23th, and 25th wards will have free parking as of this Sunday.

“Everyone in Chicago deserves a day of rest from the awful parking meter deal, and the sooner that relief can begin the better," Emanuel said in a statement. "I am proud to have fought for and won free Sunday parking for our city’s neighborhoods."

While the mayor hailed his re-vamped deal hastily shoved through City Council as good for taxpayers, many aldermen worried the lessee, Chicago Parking Meters LLC, would actually profit more from the new terms due to extended meter hours.

In the meantime, Chicago Parking Meters LLC is "methodically altering pay-and-display boxes across the city" to accommodate the terms of the new deal. A statement from the city indicted several more wards would see free Sunday parking ahead of schedule on a "rolling" basis.

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