On-Street Parking inChicago – Lessons to be Learned


BY JOHN VAN HORN


rebellion and ousted a mayor. She then asked: “Could parkingmeters be the new snow” forMayor Daley?


A The privatization turnover is not, it appears, exactly a text-


book case for howthis should be done, but the price hikes seemto be working, kinda.As ParkingToday reported earlier, part of the privatization process was a substantial increase in parking fees. (You can read about the rage in links onmyMarch 25 PT blog.) When Iwas in Chicago inmid-March, I noted that therewas


plenty of parking space on-street, but also thatmymeter was full of quarters and I couldn’t insert a coin. Knowing that 90%of all tickets don’t getwritten, Iwent “bare” and didn’t get a ticket. But I digress. Citizens are screaming about a number of things. First, the


signage on the meters seems inconsistent. Second, the meters require tons of quarters to get a bit of time.Third, likeme,many find meters full of quarters. Fourth, many meters are broken; vandalism seems rampant. Fifth, with all the confusion, people are getting tickets right and left. And sixth, complaints are going unanswered. Wow, I feel that, in reality, it’s due to the fact that peoplewill


pay less to park in local garages than pay the high rates on-street. However, the ratesmay be a tad too high. If there is more than one space per block-face open, then


that means the rates are set too high and need to be adjusted down (Shoup 101).The operator needs the flexibility to raise and


…some people think the parking space glut is due to a boycott.


low rates as needed to keep the requisite parking space available on-street. They could vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and from day to day (less expensive on weekends or after 10 p.m. or whatever). I assumed the new parking company,Morgan Stanley/Laz,


would raise rates slowly, area by area, as they replaced the park- ing meters with equipment or systems that take credit cards and/or cash.However, they seemed to have put the increased rates into effect all at once. Hence the problems withmeters being full and irate and confused citizens. I ama bit surprised at all the furor in Chicago. Laz is a good


professional company, and one would have thought that the issues listed abovewould have been foremost in theirmindswhen they took over.


30 MAY 2009 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUM- nist was recently railing on the priva- tization of parkingmeters in Chicago. She alluded to the city’s lousy snow removal in 1979 that sparked a voter


TheMayor’s Snowstorm? Of course, the local press hasn’t been a help. I have fielded


at least four calls fromSun-Times and Chicago Tribune reporters with agenda-driven stories. One wanted to know all about van- dalismin parkingmeters: Howmuch is there, where it’s worst, is it growing as a problemworldwide? Thatwas a hard one forme to address. I didn’t knowitwas a


problem. I knew there were spates of it from time to time, but usually it was driven, like in Chicago, by a policy change and then petered out. But the reporter didn’t want to hear that, and I referred her to Larry Berman, thinking his NYC experience might give her pause. It seems that with all the trouble with the Chicago privatiza-


tion transition, a good policy would have been to have a morato- rium on citations until all the systems were in place, everything checked out, and people used to the new program. I think this could have been donewithout telling anyone. Just


have the ticket writers give warnings, and if a person received two or three warnings, turn the last one into a ticket. But then, I’msitting inmy office in LosAngeles, and not on the front lines in Chicago.Mayor Daley is tough and says that Laz can with- stand the complaints that will soon drop off. He hopes. That brings us back to the Sun-Times columnist’s query


above. Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic lost a squeaker elec- tion to Jane Byrne after three major snowstorms paralyzed the city in 1979 and Bilandic was seen as ineffective in getting the streets cleared. Will parkingmeters beMayor Daley’s snowstorm?


PT


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