Chicago To Lease Parking Meters To A Company That Will Charge $6.50 An Hour?
The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago is trying to get "quickie" approval for a proposal to privatize the city's parking meters. Under the 75 year lease, Chicago's 36,000 parking meters would be controlled by a partnership that includes Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and LAZ Parking. This partnership will, naturally, raise prices. Critics of the proposal say that charging $6.50 an hour by 2013 to park downtown would hurt local businesses.
More troubling is the potential for a conflict of interest:
Ald. William Banks (36th), one of the mayor's staunchest City Council supporters, warned that charging $6.50-an-hour to park at Loop meters and forcing drivers to feed those meters 24/7 would be a "definite deterrent to people visiting the downtown area," hurting retailers and restaurants.
Parking enforcement could get tougher if the contractor exercises its right to "supplement" the city's ticket-writing efforts to "protect its revenue."
Supplement the city's ticket writing to "protect its revenue?" Well, that seems like a conflict of interest, doesn't it? Consumerist expects to receive a lot of email from angry motorists should this deal go through.
Motorists would pay more to park at cashless meter spaces [Sun-Times]
(Photo: mbeldyk )
Post a comment
Comments:
Private industry does nothing better than government.
Yet another reason I wish our public transportation system didn't suck so bad (or cost more than driving your own vehicle, at least here in MA)
I just read Tom Vanderbilt's fascinating book, "Traffic" this weekend (good review here: [www.city-journal.org]).
In that book, he argues persuasively that street parking should be *more* expensive, not less expensive, and certainly not free.
Of course, that's not a new argument-- "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup argues for it as well.
That's our Richie Daley!
@shoelace414: Private industry does most things better than government. However, number one on that list is, sometimes problematically, making money.
Maybe he could just bulldoze some giant X's in the pavement in the middle of the night. That'll deter 'em good!
Nothing is like good old fashioned Chicago political corruption, something we'll all be getting lessons on come January 20th!
@mzs:
Maybe so in terms of shopping, though not always eating. As a Gold Coast resident, I can say that this cost is beyond ridiculous. People who are visiting residents of the neighborhood already have precious few places where they can park that aren't metered. As a non-driver, I'm not eligible to get neighborhood parking passes, and I have friends who have spent literally an hour at a time trying to find a parking spot. $6.50/hour, 24 hours a day is ridiculous.
1. $6.50 an hour street parking will kill business but it will also encourage green practices, like not bringing a car downtown.
2. I hope the agreement also means the leasee of the meters is respnsible for meter maintenance and replacement.
3. Who will issue and enforce parking tickets?
3. In Boston, where I live, parking enforcement was never about a city attempting to solve a problem like parking. Instead its meant for one thing - raise revenue through violations. Feeding a meter for more than 2 hours will get you a ticket. Parking at an out of order one for more than 1 hour will get you a ticket. (And one out of every five meters is out of ordrer).
meanwhile the public transportation in chicago is a fn joke.
Politicians are so stupid. If a private company is going to raise the rates, then just raise them yourself and keep ownership of the meters. It is not right to let a private company have the ability to write legally enforceable tickets. Or for the city to be writing tickets to enforce meters owned by a private company.
And what about all the side costs? Like the cost of the maintaining the part of the road used for the metered parking? Or the court costs associated with people disputing tickets they don't deserve. The city is still going to be paying all the expenses associated with the meters besides the meters themselves.
@Necoras: The meters already make money. And look at the tow industry. Giving private industry legal authority over citizens is never a good thing.
Of course, if no one is willing to pay $6.50 an hour, the company will lower the price.
And if enough people are willing to pay $6.50 an hour that the meters are full all day, well, why shouldn't they charge that much?
(Note: This is completely aside from all the bigger issues of "High Cost of Free Parking", congestion management, green practices, and the like that all could conceivably support higher parking rates)
it costs 50 cents per 15-20 minutes in my home town on the street. as a result i do avoid shopping there. if i do go into town, i park in whatever free parking i can find and usually it's "for customers of" whatever only.
it's ridiculous to make it more difficult for people to spend money on the local economy. seriously, how did humans get so stupid?
Just wait. In two years, the company will be asking for grants (aka handouts) for things ranging from meter maintenance or reimbursement for not enough people using the meters. And they'll get the money.
Semi-serious question, If a private company issues me a ticket, what authority do they have to make me pay it?
more importantly, who has $6.50 in quarters?
I'm not sure abut $6.50 an hour, but higher parking prices have actually be shown in some areas of California to actually increase business for retailers (it encourages higher car turnover in front of stores). Not to mention you can actually find a parking spot when you really need it :)
As someone pointed out, Donald Shoup has written a great book about this topic (and street allocation for cars vs. people) and I wish his ideas were incorporated into cities across the US.
If you've ever been to Chicago, you know that half of the police force is for writing tickets.
Ho Ho yourself. Please read this review of Naomi Klein's ill-informed screed:
Cue 2010 budget meeting where taxes are raised to supplement the lost revenue. The only way this makes sense is if the deal includes a percentage of profits given to the city annually for the life of the contract, even then I would expect the city to receive less revenue than if they kept ownership.
@Franklin Comes Alive!: They have the right to send you to collections, and the expense is usually a valid one.
If cities transitioned meters into ones that would accept dollar bills or even debit/credit cards, this wouldn't be such a major issue. People would certainly more readily swipe their cards for an hour of parking than have to go through the hassle of digging for 26 quarters. The quarters are definitely part of the issue.
@happysquid: Heh, I think you've made my point for me: corporations, when given governmental like powers, are better at screwing over the people :).
Parking meters are there to make money, thus put private industry in charge and they will make more money. Likewise with the towing industry. It doesn't mean things are fair, it means that the private companies do their jobs faster and more efficiently.
Look at a closely related example: transportation. Given that time were the only factor, would you rather take a taxi, or public transportation? The taxi is more efficient for you personally, and it will get you there faster. It's a better choice if time is the only factor involved. Hiring a private limo is an even better choice, ignoring cost.
Private industry is ruthless because it answers first to its stockholders: profit is king. The company is paid based on its results. Government takes forever because the people involved are more interested in protecting their jobs than doing them: results don't actually matter as long as the officials get their paycheck. Government is paid based on the fact that it can force you to pay.
Can't they just raise the rates by a dollar, and baseball bat my nuts instead?
Don't worry, at the rate the economy is going, there will be no small businesses left in a downtown by 2013 and no reason to park there.
@CardedForDissent: The new meters do just that. It's a single box that covers a stretch of street. You pay at the central machine which prints a ticket that you place in your front window.
Dollar bills and credit cards are a-okay.
Article I read this morning in the red eye states that the meters will eventually have to be outfitted with a call-to-pay or debit/credit card functionality.
Regardless, I've lived here for six weeks (Evanston to be exact) and the concept of driving and parking downtown is still very foreign to me. The CTA system may be unreliable but a 30-minute train ride into downtown and $15 for cab fare anywhere in the loop sure beats the prospect of navigating the loop and finding/paying for parking.
@gretch9er: You don't have a license, then? Know anyone in the neighborhood with one who can get you parking passes? Have them stop by your alderman's office to pick them up. As a resident of a permit area you should be able to get them.
Street parking is a scarce resource. Street parking in the loop is even scarcer. Private parking lots will charge as much as $20 an hour. Even at $6.25, this is still a steal.
Besides, if anybody is driving to downtown Chicago and counting on street parking to be available when they get there, they might as well just stay home.
They made public/private "partnerships" here in CA for those red light cameras, with Boeing splitting the revenues from municipalities.
Since Boeing has an incentive to err on the side of charging violators (yup, it's the private company that decides), there are a blizzard of tickets send, in plain envelopes, to innocents. Thousands were sent to drivers making legal right-hand turns on a red, alone.
Nice thing is that the original ticket looks like junk mail, is discarded, followed by one with the city seal on it, demanding payment, with no chance to fight the charge since the time has expired. Argued my way out of two of them, both times totally innocent.
It's a racket. Run, Chicago, RUN!
Not that I'm a bitter, red-light running, leadfoot scofflaw or anything. Err, when mostly sober.
@Necoras: All-in-all I agree pretty much with your statements, except for the one that parking meters are there to make money. Actually, parking meters aren't there just to make money (overall, they are a money loser for many municipalities, what with hiring meter maids and administrative hassles). Their primary purpose at most sites is to encourage turnover of parking spaces so no one 'hogs' a space all day, thus reducing the number of potential shoppers at that location.
so much for visiting Chicago... at least with a vehicle...
It would be cheaper to higher a day laborer to drive your car around the block continuously than to park for an hour.
@NotChoinski: My favorite one was, parking my motorcycle in between another car and a dumpster (in a space that wasn't large enough for another car, but also wasn't officially a parking space) landed me TWO fines: One for being parked in an illegit space, and another for parking in a residential-sticker area without a permit. FUCK Boston parking.
@shoelace414: I beg to differ, I think that private industry can be much more innovative than the government on some things. But the government needs to be smart about privatization.
In this case, I would have said, rather than privatizing just the "meters," privatize the parking spots. Say that they need to come up with X dollars a year per spot. But also hand it out to several different companies in order to encourage competition and innovation.
Who knows, maybe they'd come up with a way to have "sponsors" cover part of the cost through ads. Or they could have monthly subscriptions, or put in charging stations at some meters for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. They could also implement sensors and networking in order to be alerted when someone is parking without paying, greatly reducing the cost of "meter maids." They could even offer other services such as valet parking services to offset their costs and decrease the generic "parking" cost.
What they're doing now is simply encouraging the company to be jerks, not to be smart. It's no good.
@Triborough:
oh please, just be quiet already... he won fair and square and there is absolutely no way he could do any worse than the idiot in office now.
Short of pushing the button, he cannot possibly screw up this country any more.
@Daveinva: I actually am currently reading The High Cost of Free Parking, and the guy makes some really good arguments.
Of course, I also believe in New Urbanism where you actually design the town in a way where cars and parking are close to unnecessary, but that's just me.
@Scuba Steve: Correct here. I actually work in parking enforcement (I know, I'm evil) for a private company and that's our recourse for when people don't pay tickets.
A ding on your credit isn't anything to laugh about. And yet every day people say, "I have nothing to do with you people so I just chucked the ticket. You can't make me pay."
Wait a tick... number two just made me think of something.... does this mean that destroying the meter is no longer considered destruction of government property?? HOT DAMN, im goin' meter bashin'!
heh, but really... downtown is going to suck if this happens =(
Okay, I know this makes me the devil, but I work in parking enforcement and the fact that most people don't realize, as put forward very well in the book The High Cost of Free Parking, is that parking costs money and free parking just costs the consumer or the taxpayer if you use it or not.
So while I think $6.50 is too much, at the same time, I'd have to sit down and look at their budget to see why. People are constantly telling me that we charge too much for parking (I guess they don't realize I pay the same rate they do) and once I got someone to explain it to me, there are fees people don't even dream of associated with parking that make the rates for the spaces so high.
sure they can, if a meter is owned by a private company, parking there without feeding the meter can be construed as trespass. They can just have a police officer write a parking ticket for the violation instead of towing the car.
Your second paragraph brings some very good questions though. I dont see the company in question maintaining the road in front of the meter. Not to mention, I thought streets were owned by the city, I did not think anyone but the city could collect on that land. Unless, that is, they are actually selling the land to the companies. As it is public land, how can a company charge you to be there?
@GrantGannon: I live in the SW suburbs and drive to Midway, park there and take the Orange Line when I need to get downtown.
*grumbles about CTA rate hike*
@Scuba Steve:
but what if they do not own the land that they wrote you a ticket for? Since the land is public land, how can there be a case for them there?
and the other half is for adding to the national police corruption statistics....... ugh.. I hate this town =(
@clair: The article title refers to cashless meters, so presumably you have no choice but to give it some form of plastic.
Then you get to hope you're not getting dinged a couple MORE bucks by your bank due to the form of the charge going through.
several observations:
1. Chicago has already sold off one of its tollways, to make a quick buck, raise revenue, and not have to raise taxes. This is always a mistake, because private companies wouldn't be buying infrastructure if the profit potential wasn't good -- so why should a community sell off something that benefits it to own. Public things like this are run at a loss, almost always, because it benefits people more than they know, or are prepared to pay for out of pocket, per use.
2. The root cause of this is that taxpayers have become averse to paying their share of what it costs to live in a civil society, and want the benefits, but without the maintenance. (also part is that govt gets inefficient). But as a result, things that used to benefit all at a low cost, are increasingly charged per use, at full price, and the rich are the ones who can afford it.
3. Finally, if a private company is willing to pay that much to take over a public concession/infrastructure, whether parking meters, freeways, etc. -- there must be a profit in it somewhere. Why should govt sell it off? It is always a losing proposition in the long run, that doesn't benefit taxpayers -- in the long run. Maybe they will get a quick cash infusion -- but it's like taking out a temporary loan -- someone will have to pay for it later (or not get the profits/benefits that they could've gotten) compared to if they had held on to it and run it responsibly.
4. Chicago and Daly have the stench of just about the most corrupt city in America.
I'm more concerned about the ethnic restaurants and shops outside of the Loop. A lot of times people drive to these places that live nearby simply because it would take 45 minutes and two transfers to get to otherwise. Also I live in the suburbs and I drive to such places pretty often. The Loop has plenty of parking facilities, but there is only street parking outside of the the Loop, downtown, and gold coast and those places have very little to offer in terms of shopping and eating that you can find in any mall anywhere else.