The Chicago parking meter saga continues today with a post from theexpiredmeter.com, a blog about Chicago parking tickets and how to fight them. The post has photos of parking meters being spray painted, destroyed and otherwise defaced. Guess people aren’t too thrilled with paying 28 quarters for 2 hours in the Loop…
An entire block of parking meters, numbering nearly 20, were spotted along west Irving Park in the Albany Park neighborhood, that had both the front and back of their heads spray painted black. Once spray painted, these meters are unreadable by Parking Enforcement Aides and therefore, vehicles can’t be ticketed as it’s impossible to see if the meters were fed or not.
Some angry citizens are going for the simple approach and simply peeling the stickers off the meters so that they don’t have the instructions required by law.
One tipster named Brian says, “In some cases, these decals just peel right off the front of the meter with little or no effort. When these stickers were originally applied, the weather was very cold and it seems the adhesive didn’t adhere correctly. These stickers just come right off. They also appear to be too big to fit into the recessed area they are being placed in. Yet another case of someone in charge not knowing what they are doing.”
Other tactics that have been documented include, gluing quarters into the slots with superglue, ripping the meters out of the ground, stealing the coin box, and filling the meter with pennies so it breaks.
Apparently, the pennies don’t register as money, but they do break the meter.
“We are finding a lot of pennies and nickels in coin slots,” confirmed one LAZ Parking employee we confronted on the street. He wouldn’t give us his name, his job it is to repair parking meters. “We see a lot of that going on.”
And then, there’s this:
Has The Parking Meter Revolt Begun? [The Expired Meter] (Thanks, Lindsay!)
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As much as $7 for 2 hours is ridiculous do you know how often we pay similar rates at sporting events from private corporations without complaining?
@Randy Treibel: If you do not see the difference between paying to park at a parking meter and parking at a sporting event, you have a problem.
Also, It’s $7 for 1 hour, not for 2
3.50 an hour to park on the Loop. Doesn’t sound that expensive.
@TrueBlue63:
That is just phase one of the expansion of the prices. They are going to phase in more increases over the next couple of years until prices reach something like $12.
What’s stupid is the city just could have raised prices themselves and made all the extra money. They sold the meters for 99 years based on the lower rates the city was charging at the meters. If they factored in the higher prices they could have charged like the pricate company is charging, the meter sale should have been more like $10 billion instead of the $1.2 billion they got.
Another thing that is stupid is they raised the prices before they had the meter infrastructure in place to accomodate the new prices. Their plan was to put in the new kiosk type meters where you use a credit card and it prints a ticket you put in your window. No one would be bitching if they raised the prices after they put those in, but to use a meter now you have to carry 40 pounds of change in your pocket, and if the old style meters don’t work you are going to get hit with $75 parking tickets.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Does anyone think that doing these things is going to make things better? All this is going to do is raise the price even higher at the least. Have any of these “saboteurs” not realized the amount of camera’s that are in and around the city these days? We have no less than three within a two block radius of where I live. I hope they wise up and stop acting like children.
Also, is there any way we can stop pushing the damn panic button all the time, $3.50 an hour isn’t that expensive, especially if you can afford to drive a car to the Loop. Grow up.
@druidicawen: Good point. They should paint/destroy the cameras first.
@druidicawen: Yes, $3.50 is not that expensive. That’s not the point. The point is that the $3.50 must be in quarters. How often to you just happen to have that $7 quarters lying around to pay for your 2 hours of parking? This setup not only requires you to suddenly have several pounds worth of quarters at your disposal at all times, it more than likely requires you to have to patronize skeezy currency exchanges (and pay for the privilege – the one I went to recently charges 50 cents a roll!) to get them.
Is vandalism the answer? No. But your solution to “grow up” and just accept this asinine system isn’t a solution either.
It’s just not right to allow a private company the ability to harm the business of so many business owners. This is like sticking a $10 toll at the start of a busy one way main street after businesses have been there 20-30 years. Why should some upstart be able to effectively close them down? What’s next? “Ok shopkeeps, if you want these meters to “go away”, we will need “protection money” each month….how’sabout 5 G’s a month from each’o youse”?
I bet the sales of whiskey and pipe cutters have skyrocketed in Chicago.
I don’t condone vandalism in any form but we have every right to be pissed off.
We in Chicago pay high sales tax, high property tax, gas tax, and soon our state income tax will be higher. Now we pay higher costs for parking. Let’s not forget that public transportation fares were recently raised too.
In other words it’s PAY PAY PAY to live in this city and for what? Our schools suck, roads are in terrible shape, there are fewer police on the street, more trash on same streets, more graffiti on buildings (thanks to that program getting cut.) We’re paying to bail the city, county, and state out of 20+ years of mismanagement.
Why is vandalism in the face of injustice so frowned upon? Sure it’s a crime, but these people are basically being robbed, extorted, shit upon by the people who are supposed to serve them. I agree with a previous commenter who referenced the Boston Tea Party. I love to see this kind of rebellion.
In the old days, this sort of thing was expected to happen when the government does something shitty. (I realize that a private company jacked up the prices, but the Chicago government let them). And this is only a minor case of vandalism, in my opinion.
I don’t want city-wide riots or violence, but the government needs to realize that the people won’t stand for being shit on. Way to go Chi-town.
@ben gardners boat: Some people seem to think that it’s expected for big corporations and government to screw the individual, but when the individual does the same in reverse, it’s “bad.” If the schoolyard bully punches you, these people seem to think that a calm talk will prevent another punch (unlikely, they’ll just mess with you again at a later date). But if you dare to hit the bully back, then *you* get expelled.
I’m usually against stuff like this, but I give my full support to these people.
Ok people read the story…its 28 quarters for 2 hours, which works out to $3.50 an hour not a buck an hour.
For the folks who are saying not to use the service…are you serious? Some people rely on metered spots very heavily. Thats like telling the little old lady who walks to the grocery store right next to her house to stop walking there because they charge $7.00 for a quart of milk. For some people, like the little old lady, walking to a different store isn’t a possibility. Same deal with parking, for some people, parking on the street is the only way.
Kudos to the people who aren’t taking this lying down, which tends to happen far too often when a RIDICULOUS situation arises.
Out of curiosity (I grew up in the middle of nowhere so I don’t know how you city folk handle this situation): What happens when you want to park at a broken/full/whatever metre? Are you still allowed to park there for “free” or do you have to park at one that works?
@parkavery: sometimes you arent allowed to park there, sometimes its free till the meter gets fixed. Depends where you live.
@parkavery: In Chicago, inoperable meters make the list of acceptable reasons to contest a ticket: [tinurl.us]
@MMD: So you park at a broken meter that you can’t possibly feed or get a time from and get a ticket for something totally not your fault? What’s a PITA!
Now I’m mad. Where’s my spray paint?
Criminal: you mean the state, right?
It’s funny…. People want to vandalize the meters when they charge too much but not one Starbucks has been destroyed for overpriced Latte’s and Pastries.
Funny thing is… unless you have a bus pass in chicago, it costs nearly the same amount to get to and from your home on Public transportation.
@Dethzilla:
The difference is that Starbucks isn’t the only game in town if you want coffee. You can go to a Dunkin’ Donuts or a 7-11 or make your own coffee. It’s not like there’s another company offering cheaper rates on metered parking in the same location.
@Dethzilla: It’s cheaper for me to drive than it is to take the bus. I live in edgewater and work downtown. Luckily there’s free parking by my work (I work by the remains of Cabrini Green, free street parking, and not as scary as it used to be).
I spend about $60/month on gas or $85/month on an unlimited CTA Pass. If I sold my car, I wouldn’t have insurance payments or upkeep, but that’s not going to happen.
@Dethzilla: Lattes are a choice. Getting around the city shouldn’t have to be.
Take the Metra? Anyone? No? Ok….
@Thaddeus: The Metra that only runs every hour or hour and a half on the weekends? That Metra? No, thanks.
Similar actions are covering car tags in response to automated ticket red light cameras -which are typically owned by private contractors.
The same contractors who usually get the yellow light hold time reduced after the red light cameras are installed. Hmmmm see any connection in this case?
Sorry about the previous post. I had about 8 windows open and didn’t proofread it whatsoever. Often i type without even looking at the box or screen i’m typing on in the name of efficiency.
Anyhow vandalism is a form of sabotage. It is considered a legitimate tactic in any guerrilla type campaign. It is the future of warfare as well as rebellion.
Freedom and democracy do not depend on ‘being adult’ and going the high road. If that worked people would do it. All forms of sabotage emerge out of a failure of legitimate means of problem solving.
Good. I hope the pushback extends to using paint and sledgehammers on politicians.
As a lifelong Chicagoan, I can’t tell you how happy this post makes me.
Don’t make us angry. You won’t like us when we’re angry…
I see Chicago-style corruption hasn’t changed in 80 years.
“Toll early and toll often”, to paraphrase Al Capone.
Having lived in Chicago my entire life, I feel this is more about the frustration of our city getting away with nickle and diming us to death, ane lining their pockets. All of this built up anger is finally getting to everyone here.
I confirm that in Berkeley, CA they simply couldn’t keep meters functional and gave up and went to a kiosk instead. I didn’t personally ever see anyone removing the heads but I recall seeing whole blocks with headless meters. I bought an unlocked meter head from a salvage place on San Pablo……
This is idiotic if the parking goes up to 6.50 how are they going to fill minimum wage jobs in those areas when half your pay-check goes to parking. Is there alternate ways to park, like do companies in that area provide employee parking? What about people who live there do you have to feed the meter every few hours even if you are just at home?
COOL HAND LUKE! i think? right?
I hope these vandals remember that if they CSI their butts they might find finger prints on the coins or their might be surveillance cameras from a business in the area . It does send a message though .
I hate the privitazion of public property and jobs but vandalism is no better than the unarmed robbery these companies are perpetrating . And some where down the line there is a politician associated with this .
I’m all in favor of this so-called public vandalism.
Sorry kids, but ‘capitalism’ is about amassing wealth for a minority while the majority get educated/conditioned into whining about good behavior and not actually smashing tangible signs of how little the State cares about the people.
Hiding behind bourgeois ideas of ‘good behavior’ or ‘certain actions being in the province of teenagers,’ is to be playing at speaking on behalf of your own jailers. Get some larger perspectives.
So, well done to the people trashing the meters. You have to be someone’s aged granny to want people to play nice in this economic/political context.
Its about time some Americans showed a tiny glimmer of a spark in the overwhelming passivity everything gets greeted by.
Finding parking in the loop was already next to impossible even if you try a parking lot. The increase just adds another reason to the list of why you should try to brave the el.
also, vandalism is usually not good, but it can be nice to see how creative people can get sometimes
There’s an urban legend about some smartass MIT students who found a parking meter in a junk yard, bought it, got a written receipt for it and then proceeded to cut off every parking meter in Cambridge. Whenever some cop saw them walking down the street with one, they’d just show the guy the receipt.
I think the most damaging thing the citizen of Chicago can do is not to re-elect the mayor who approved of this. I don’t know if mayor made the decision to outsource the parking meter because he did not think everything thru, or he was “convinced” by LAZ to let them monopolize the meter business in that area. 28 quarters for 2 hours is simply ridiculous. Although I understand the principle of supply and demand, this approach to create more parking space is appalling. It is going to ruin the businesses around those parking meters. current Econ is bad enough, we don’t need more greedy people to ruin more businesses.
Parking meters serve a purpose. Cities maintain the streets, including the parking lane. That is land that could be used for something else (buildings, sidewalk cafes, more lanes for traffic, etc.) Any place where parking demand exceeds availability they also serve an important role in traffic control. If there are no empty spaces, cars will circle looking for spots, staying in traffic longer. You want to keep about 1 in 7 spots open so people can actually find a space. (Don’t take my word for it, read Donald Shoup’s “The High Cost of Free Parking”.)
If you want better parking, tell your city to build some more parking spaces, or you could take the bus. Free parking encourages people to drive instead of taking mass transit. Big parking lots push buildings farther apart, which makes it harder to walk to where you want to go, which means more people drive, which means you need more parking, which means you need bigger parking lots… see where I’m going with this?
Parking spaces are a public resource that only one person can use at a time. They should be metered.
Vandalizing parking meters just leads cities to ban parking at broken meters, which makes parking harder. It’s a better tactic for people who want to see more funding for mass transit than angry parkers. Or, the city will require you to shell out for in car GPS parking meters. Those work like electronic toll tags. (Actually, they are pretty cool, and as long as you have money in the account you don’t have to fish around for change.)
Let’s see, city revenues are in the crapper. State can’t help, they’re broke too. Somehow, the trash needs to be collected, streets repaired, etc. So they crank up the rate on parking to help bring in a little extra cash – ride a bike or take the bus if you don’t like it. Hell, in LA where EVERYONE drives, it can be as high as 25 cents for 5 min. in some areas, and the old 6pm cut off got recently bumped to 8pm without much notice to many surprised drivers. Chicago used to be a city dominated by public trans. Now every yahoo has to have an SUV to get from Lincoln Park to Streeterville. Maybe they should be stuck with higher meter rates. Complaining to the alderman/councliman/mayor etc – that makes some sense. Complaining by ripping meters out of the ground or breaking them is stupid, detrimental and further damaging to the already weakened infrastructure.
President Obama should take some time off from spending trillions of tax dollars and go back to Chicago to do some more community organizing.
Maybe he could get citizens to ‘change’ the system, instead of being criminals?
civil disobedience has historically been a standard form or protest in America and it is sad that we have people who are so happy with their restricted, “safe”, freedomless lives that they cry foul over the vandalism and claim that voting out the corrupt politician will correct the problem. Newsflash: all the politicians are corrupt. good luck with that strategy
@AstraBabble: Are you saying this is an example of civil disobedience?
Gee, at 28 quarters for two hours I wonder what; the weight of 156 quarters is, for that is how many one would need for 8 hours. I see brisk sales of super re enforced pants with super sized pockets. Chicagoians will also build up their lower body power by just lugging around all that change. Heart health will improve, and the weakest will die off of heart attacks, thus improving the overall condition of the general public. Thus Mayor Daley has again proved to be a great leader.
@ageshin: Maybe it’s just an indirect way of discouraging baggy pants. The weight of a couple rolls of quarters would make it impossible to keep them from falling down.
It’s racist, I tell you! Racist!
My friend likes to shove bunny poop in the slot then rip the stickers off
@Wilkin Wong:
your friend is an idiot that walks around with rabbit shit in his car / pocket.
I can’t help but wonder, who hates Chicago more; the people who live there or the people who live in central Illinois? Up until now I’d have said central, but maybe I’m wrong on this.
All of these annoyances don’t matter to the City because they will ticket you regardless of whether the meter is working or not. It is not their job to care, it is their job to write you tickets so the City can make money which it then gives out to the people connected to the politicians. That’s the way it works in Chicago. And the other day they floated the idea of giving private security guards (i.e. fake cops) the right to issue tickets to people. All in the name of money people.
The only stand that matters is voting out of office the douche-bags who keep fleecing the people out of every cent they make. And then if we somehow get new people in there, make sure they put in terms limits. Part of the problem is that public offices have become hereditary in the city, county, and state, getting passed from one corrupt generation of a family to the next. If people are out of office after at most 8 years, that will ensure that the same corrupt families are not continuing the machines they built. Then we might be able to have some responsible governance for once.
So many nonchicago commentors are missing a few points:
1 the company is suspose to install those credit card accepting machine but they haven’t yet
2 7.50 an he is cheap downtown compaired to private lots but the machines are breaking because the company isn’t collecting often enough
3 many meters haven’t had info (hrs, cost) so people are getting screwed thinking they are safe aftere hrs
4you can only get out of ticket if you call to report broken meter