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Monday, June 01, 2009
Law - More on: Chicago Mayor Dailey privatizes City parking meters
Updating this ILB entry from Dec. 6, 2008, you may wonder, how has the privatization turned out?
A story in the Saturday NY Times displayed the answer with this rhyming headline: "Long a Driver’s Curse, Chicago Parking Gets Worse ." Some quotes:
CHICAGO — Motorists here long ago learned how to park a fine line.And covering it all is The Expired Meter Blog.Miss the diagonal markings on your spot? That’s a $50 violation. More than 12 inches from the curb? $25, payable to the city. Two overdue tickets? You’re getting a boot.
But while every city has its vehicular regulations, Chicago under Mayor Richard M. Daley has earned the reputation of being ruthlessly demanding on motorists as a way to collect much-needed revenue, particularly when it comes to the city’s parking meters.
Now, the city is suffering what seems like a motorists’ meltdown. * * *
In an effort to plug a gaping budget deficit, Mr. Daley pushed a deal through the City Council a few months ago that privatized management of the parking meters for 75 years in exchange for a lump-sum payment of $1.15 billion.
In some areas, rates then rose fourfold. At most meters, there was no more free parking on holidays or Sundays, and some meters must be fed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Most vexing to drivers, however, is that thousands of newly installed credit-card and coin-taking parking meters simply do not work. They have been charging the wrong rates, failing to issue receipts (the only proof of payment) or not accepting money.
On Wednesday, so many of the downtown meters were out of order and spewing out error messages that the city did the unthinkable: it stopped writing parking tickets.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 1, 2009 08:27 AM
Posted to General Law Related