METER PARKING IN CHICAGO--SOME THOUGHTS
I rarely drive my car. Living downtown, I walk or take a cab. There are those two historic occasions when I took a bus, but that might not happen again for years. If I am driving my car it is probably to a restaurant that has valet parking, someone’s house in the suburbs with a driveway or a store with a parking lot. Since I have never parked at a meter, I obviously have never parked where I would have to use one of the new meter pay stations.
Yesterday when I was walking and watching a meter enforcement aide, (That is their official title. I checked with the Department of Human resources of the City of Chicago), checking the windshields of cars to see if they had the meter receipts on the dashboard, I had a few thoughts about this new type of pay parking.
As I observed the aide, I noticed she just quickly walked by each car and did not closely peer at the receipt on the dashboard to ascertain the time and date stamp. She just casually eye-balled to see if a receipt were there. It makes one wonder if people who meter park often, just keep using the same receipt and hope for the best?
John Kass in his Tribune column on Wednesday wondered about what is going to happen in the winter when a storm occurs and covers the windshield of a car with ice and snow. I started thinking about that also. The snow will block the view of the dashboard and the meter enforcement aides will have to scrap the windshield of each car to be able to see if a parking receipt is in place. How much time will that take? Isn’t there a safety risk for the aide who now has to physically stand in the street and try to avoid moving traffic as they scrap the windshield? Won’t the process of checking receipts be slowed down tremendously? Is scraping the windshield of a car in the union contract for meter enforcement aides?
Another problem with the removal of the physical parking meters is that there are no delineated spaces anymore. One can park anywhere on the street now. I saw some cars parked that had obviously come in early and they were positioned at a distance from the corner that actually reduced how many cars could now fit at the curb. The cars were unevenly spaced because there were no lines to define exactly where they should park. A street that could hold ten cars might now only hold nine. Why wouldn’t the city paint the curbs to indicate where a car should park? If a street now holds nine cars instead of ten, isn’t that costing revenue?
Mayor Daley admitted, “"The implementation was not good at all from the city's side.” in speaking about the privatization of the parking meters. The city has about three months before snow starts falling on the windshields of cars and obscures the parking receipts. City Hall better start working on a solution now and I don’t think praying for global warming will be the answer!
Blog Follower Cupcake Kathy writes:
ReplyDelete"I don't have facts and figures about what our income stream was with our own meters vs. what we got from the company, so I can't speak to that. This system does have plusses and minuses as do all systems and part of it is just getting used to it.
I believe most of Europe has used this concept for years. I remember parking in Brugges, Belgium in 1984 and having to ask someone how to do the parking tickets. I don't know how much it snows there, so maybe they aren't a good comparison. Milwaukee's system is similar but instead of putting a ticket in the window, you key in your spot number at the kiosk so the meter person just checks at the kiosk to see what cars on the street have overstayed their welcome. Maybe that would work better in a snow town. Although, how often does it snow that much here on a typical year - 15 times? And those snow days blocked the old meters, slowed down the meter people as well so I don't know what the net effect was. Maybe if you shovel yourself in and out of a parking spot, you deserve a parking break.
The designated spots work both ways. The old spots were big enough for the big SUV's. You could fit 3 Honda Civics in 2 of the old spots. So in many cases, it is just based on who parked first as to how efficient the spots are. Same as on the non-metered streets. It is so frustrating though to see 3/4 spots - I wish there were a magic switch to just scootch a car up a little bit so that I could fit!
The one positive thing about the new system for me is availability of parking. For the short term parker (less than 2 hours), the change is a good thing. I have been able to run into my favorite little stores because I can actually find parking! In the past, long term parkers (employees) would park in the spots early and then go out every few hours to put money in the meters. Now because the return replenishment has to be properly timed to the first ticket's expiration, this doesn't work any more. I know restaurants that had a map of the area and employees would mark where their car was and then would send out busboys every few hours with a roll of quarters to replenish 10 - 15 meters. Now with having to get tickets and having to have carkeys to get in, it doesn't work. They are using CTA or off street parking. The meters are now available for patrons.
Extending the times to 9:00pm has also reduced the number of residents that are using the spots. When they now get home at 6:00pm, they park on residential streets or have purchased off street parking and again the spots are more available to those of us who just want to go shopping or eat at a restaurant.
I am not happy about having to pay more for parking but I am happy that I can find it. Now that I have lived with it for awhile, it is overall better for me personally. I am sure that it affects everyone differently, but giving up the frustration of the parking spot hunt is a very good thing for my mental well being."
Cupcake Kathy also writes:
ReplyDelete"I thought of another plus for the new system - being able to use a credit card instead of carrying around a thousand quarters. Plus I like knowing that the company has to pay a service fee for credit cards so they don't get all of the money - not that I like credit card companies either though. "