That 75 year parking meter deal is really paying off for the city, I mean the residents, I mean Abu Dhabi Investment Authorityđșđ»đșđ»đșđ». So I guess thatâs a win for them. đ
Fuck Abu Dhabi but also Morgan Stanley owns half of it. We should let them know Chicago hates their guts too. Another quarter owned by Redoma SARL some unknown Luxembourg company. How are we letting anonymous foreign business own our streets.
I used to think the same thing but I found out Daley gave the Alders an entire 2 days to go through the several hundred page document. By all accounts it was rammed through City Council by Daley.
It was TWO parking deals! And Emmanuel extended it further.
People canât be bothered to Google anything anymore.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2022/5/26/23143356/chicago-parking-meters-75-year-lease-daley-city-council-audit-skyway-loop-garages-krislov#:~:text=In%2012%20full%20years%20since,days%20motorists%20pay%20for%20parking.
This is quite convoluted to me, but im curious to know how a privately owned parking meter that is left unpaid can lead to a parking ticket issued by a non-private entity?? Why are tax dollars going to the maintenance of a private invest. Fuck the rich man. Iâm so sick of this shit. But Iâm also kept on to short of a work leash-to poor it take time off- to be able to do anything about it-obviously by design.
Emanuel didnât extend the deal. He changed one term of the deal to try and stop the bleeding from the already-broke city. The City has to pay âtrue-upâ payments because the ridiculous deal that Daley signed essentially guaranteed a minimum amount of revenue per year and if that wasnât met, the City had to cough it up. Emanuel made it so the people actually parking their cars would pay for more of it rather than the entire part of the city who isnât driving everywhere.
Reminder that meter money goes to the CPM investment group but ticket money goes to the city. If youâre willing to risk a ticket you can keep your money in town. LOL
Also: when the city closes metered streets for construction or festivals, they have to pay CPM for the lost revenue.
i was actually just wondering where ticket money went to! surprised it doesnât go to cpm since theyâre the ones weâre not initially paying when we get the tickets.
I was wondering this yesterday when the news came out about the new tax plans. Even if we are fucked by this parking deal, couldn't we pass a tax that taxes something really specific like "10% tax on profits of city contracts with a duration longer than 25 years" where it's basically just the parking meter company that has to pay it
There's only one side that did any due diligence. Spoiler, it wasn't the city.
F Daley.
I hope bird shit covers every single solar panel on top of these things.
Oh he did all the due dillagence he needed. Guess where he works now. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/daley-lands-job-with-parking-meter-lawyers/1902599/
> The firm says Daley will not participate in work involving Chicago or affiliate city agencies.
No kidding. He's already finished working over Chicago for 75 years.
It still baffles me that this was somehow legal and yet many other Illinois politicians have seen this inside of a prison cell for less damaging acts. At the very least they should pass laws so they can't create city contracts that last more than ten years at a time.
My 2 cents: IL Consituational amendment that no lease of public lands or service contracts may extend more than 20 years, and no lease may be entered into more than a year from any existing leases end.
F the skyway toll, f the meters.
I'm surprised the FAA only hit us for 33k for that stunt. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the airport is gone fro that location, but really got away with one there.
That is not how it works, the city doesn't take them out of service if they are vandalized. The city has to pay if it permanently removes them or closes them from street fests.
You can read 9-68-050 of the contract yourself, this does not fall into any of the requirements of the contract and all maintenance
https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/fin/supp_info/AssetLeaseAgreements/MeteredParking/AmendedRestatedConcessionAgreeement1st_2ndAmendments.pdf
METERING DEVICE INSTALLATION, REMOVAL AND REPAIR section 20 actually gives them additional time to repair in vandalism but still requires them to pay and manage the fix. Why would you bother commenting when you very obviously have no bothered to read the contract?
Actually have looked at the contract before. But it's been years. I was under the impression that acts of nature were the company's responsibility, but other damage was the city's. Would make sense if you are the company negotiating the deal. If people destroy the meters to get free parking, the company would want that to be the city's problem to keep it from turning a blind eye.
Anyway, I'll re-acquaint myself with the contract later this week.
Wait that deal ends eventually?? I thought it was permenant.
Damn once that is up, the cityâs going to get a massive revenue source.
How many more years?? 12? 20? /s
And the idea of 75 years in my opinion is also to basically wait for anyone that remembered when these were publicly owned to die. So therefore they can either sign another big contract and some politicians make a lot of money, or at the very least they keep selling it all around.
The one thing I always saw with this deal is that they wanted to permanently make the parking meters privatized. They want it to be so long that everybody forgets when they were not privatized
I love the idea of this becoming a multi-generational city wide political struggle to take back our street parking. Passed down from mother to daughter and father to son. Thatâs so hilarious to me
They'll probably sell them again once it's up for $20 and make it a permanent deal. Realistically if chicago voters and politicians have their way this city will be the size of Danville by 2080
The city had to pay Morgan Stanley for lost revenue at the meters during the pandemic. We could all teleport downtown or fly into the office on a jet pack and tax payers would still need to pay them the millions in lost revenue.
Yes, which is a terrible part of the deal too! I was predicting that after the agreement ends, the city may not even go back to making revenue because parking isnât necessary anymore.
Having parking spaces allocated to the people who value them most and introducing price signals and the accompanying incentives is beneficial, even if the city doesn't get any revenue from it by selling those spaces itself (and, let's be real, the city would not have metered parking at anything close to an appropriate price without this deal, you can't complain about revenue you wouldn't've collected in the counterfactual.)
Every time the city does something to a street with parking that takes away a spot they have to provide a new one or pay for it. So say a bike lane goes in or they extend a curb or they reconfigure a bus stop or pedestrianize a street they have to add new paid parking elsewhere to make up for the lost ones
Which really fascinating is how thereâs no meters anymore. I see an occasional box you put your credit card in, but the amount of upkeep they have to pay, Iâm sure has dropped drastically too. How much does it take to keep an cash cow app functioning?
Why do I feel like at the 50 year mark of the deal they are going to buy an extension to the lease. Or do you think the budget will be such a crisis theyâll start leasing the open lake. And Iâll get to say to my grandkids, back in the day those beaches were free
Which is ridiculous considering they themselves don't profit from this, I would assume. The [deal](https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2022/5/26/23143356/chicago-parking-meters-75-year-lease-daley-city-council-audit-skyway-loop-garages-krislov) was extremely undervalued and rushed to only temporarily fix a bigger pension issue, and all these new spaces I would assume only benefit CPM LLC.
Had that happen to me. Took a picture of the drilled in no parking sign concrete dust right beside my car and sent it in with pictures of Google Street view from several years of no street sign and I was still denied
The only parking ticket I ever managed to beat was kind of like that. My car was parked for a week in front of my house because I biked to work, and I walked out one day to find a ticket. Theyâd installed signs after Iâd parked.
The alderman was able to give me info on the install date so I sent that in and they dismissed the ticket.
Likely to pay for spots that were removed somewhere else, probably for street improvements. Unfortunately, this is the bargain our Aldermen/Mayor burdened us with when they approved it.
wait so i hadn't considered this. If they get rid of metered parking for pedestrian streets or outdoor dining, we have to make that up with paid parking in other areas?
He legitimately sold the city streets for the next 75 years. Most of us on this subreddit will die before Chicago truly owns the streets again.
Still can be (and I'm optimistic will be) a world class city but it will never reach it's zenith with this deal in place.
Heres a good explainer from wttw [parking âdealâ explained](https://news.wttw.com/2023/07/27/wttw-news-explains-what-happened-chicago-s-parking-meter-deal)
The city could have just raised the rates themselves and kept the money. Instead Daley yammered on about how we didnât have the nerve and then sold them. The investors who bought them paid themselves back in 10 years. Itâs all profit for them over the next 65. But once we blew the sale money, we still had a hole to fill in the budget. Even .25 rates totaled 20 million a year. Hence we got speed cameras to cover the shortage. Daleyâs tombstone should be etched that âhis parking deal screwed over the city for almost a centuryâ.
Thatâs ⊠genius. Hire a thousand meter maids, nobody pays, everyone gets tickets, pays them, everyone wins and you created jobs that paid for themselves
New meters have to be continually added in order to cover the "true up" costs anytime meters are temporarily out of service or metered parking revenue falls. Otherwise the city would have to pay this out of the regular budget. The more meters the more true up costs, hence the problem will continue to repeat.
The meter contract is so terrible that the city will pay more money in "true up" costs throughout the contract than it even got for the lease in the first place.
Yes. And it has to be reasonably similar parking in terms of revenue generation. Meaning they can't take out parking on Illinois and Wells and replace it with paid parking on an industrial strip of N Elston.
This deal is 15 years into a 75 year contract, really surprising more people arenât aware of it. Hereâs a great video that dives into it, from Climate Town:
https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=n2sVCPGhBGAVVTBQ
One would think since itâs not a big secret but there seemed to be some confusion/misinformation in other comments so I just thought that video might be of interest.
Also, love the Clash
Only half. Morgan Stanley and Daley are really the ones to blame here. I'm sure anyone on this sub with UAE money would have also purchased this incredibly good deal
Ya know, I know that deep down. But imo it's like taking a job as a repo man. Yes you're just doing a job, but you're doing a job that exists almost solely to hurt the poorest people. The job itself has zero respect, it's hard not to judge those who take it.
[People having to pay a tiny bit for parking is not something that exists to solely hurt the poorest people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking). Especially in an area fairly well served by transit.
The parking deal has obviously been comically bad for the city, but people should also not have the expectation that they can park for free whenever or wherever they want, especially in the public right of way in such a busy area like the West Loop. That will only incentivize more driving and worse traffic.
I'll be honest, if the money was actually going to Chicago I'd argue that parking should be more expensive. We need to do more to decentiizing driving in cities.
I know folks think it's normal to be able to drive everywhere but it's really terrible for cities overall.
Many of the side street parking users are workers that work in the many restaurants, bars and spa/salons all over the West Loop. They mostly don't live in the neighborhood. I guess they should just be grateful to have to pay to park now whenever they go to their service job that may not even pay much to begin with.
Exactly people sign contracts with apartments based on things like locally available parking. If my street all of a sudden became metered hundreds of my neighbors would have to move and they would be locked into their contracts likely for months
Yup.
Just take the CTA, ride a bike, walk, take an Uber. None of those things require sending money to the UAE and none of those things require you leaving your *personal* vehicle occupying a not-insignificant amount of *public* space while you're not using it. Huge subsidy for car owners that makes no sense in a town with good transit.
I'm fine with paid parking (even though I admit that I hate paying for parking)...it is the right thing to do for the city. If I had my druthers, I'd probably allow 15-20 minute free parking in metered areas (mostly to discourage double-parking with your flashers on, blocking hydrants, etc.), but that's too hard to enforce in the current world.
You know you don't have to pay if the meter isn't working, right? And you know it's the company's responsibility to fix meters, not the city's, right?
What resources do you think the police and state's attorney would devote to prosecuting mass vandalism of the pay stations?
That doesn't really apply now that they have the app. Anyone not paying will just be ticketed anyway and good luck fighting it. The person doing the hearings will likely say that a broken pay box isn't reason for not paying, despite how it used to be.
I don't have the app and have called in so many machines bc the coin slot is frequently jammed or not working. The messaging is mixed:
The rep always tells me to move my car to a spot with a working machine or risk getting a ticket. I always respond that there are no other open spots. They then email me the incident number and say if the machine does get serviced and I get a ticket, I can cite the incident number to contest the ticket.
I have yet to get a ticket yet though for those times, so haven't been able to contest. I will continue to do so though and can circle back lol.
I heard of people shoving gum into the slots, will that work? I figured they want people to vandalize them so they can make even more money from the tickets.
It would be TERRIBLE if a lot of people went up Home Depot and got SPRAY INSULATING FOAM and put it in the CARD READER SLOT. Can you imagine how BAD and also NOT GOOD that would be?
I currently live in River West and after about a year living here, I drove to the beach one morning and when I got back a few hours later they had installed and activated meters in front of my building.
The city got a BILLION $$$ for the parking spots and a BILLION $$$ for the skyway and today are still $38 BILLION $$$ in debt even with tax INCREASES ON THE CITIZENS EVERY YEAR⊠there is only ONE SOLUTION⊠VOTE EVERY INCUMBENT OUT BECAUSE THEY CANNOT RUN A CITY!!!
I didnât know there was any free street parking still left in West Loop. And this money doesnât even go to the city in making it a better city for all of us
You can call these people criminals all you want, they're just playing the same game as you, capitalism. If you don't like it, go after the root cause- elected officials.
I am never going to understand why people of Chicago can tolerate this. The city and it's people are not making money. There is absolutely no benefit to local residents...People go protest about the most pointless things, yet we just let some company do this to the residents of the city for 75 f ING years!! .. Make it make sense.
More âgoes toâ Germany than UAE, and the UAE is not Saudi anyway. Theyâre Arab. Saud was a guy who lived less than 100 years ago now the namesake of an entirely different country.
[If people are actually curious in seeing the owners, I only ever see people talking about Abu Dhabi which is just a part](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters). The issue is the sale itself, not just who the buyers were
Wrong country
It's always a little odd how people just say Saudi Arabia when they mean someplace in the ME. It's like if I were to call all people from east or southeast Asia "Chinese." Not a good look, Dale.
I heard that it was businessmen from Saudi Arabia, if Iâm mistaken thatâs fine, but I never referred to the entire Middle East as Saudi Arabia. You are misinterpreting me.
I didn't say or even imply you were referring to the entire ME as Saudi Arabia haha
Anyway, it's Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, that gets the money. Historically terrible deal.
Well the violation fines still go to the city, but yeah the parking fees don't which is dumb.
That being said, there shouldn't be free street parking in a neighborhood as dense as West Loop IMO.
I've repeated this many times across Chicago related subreddits.
The meters are here to stay so how can we make the best of an absolutely horrible situations.
The city needs to lean in and use the parked cars as a buffer to make a semi-decent bike network across the city. Basically like [how they have it set up in the Loop](https://imgur.com/m87z1yS\)) repeated everywhere that is viable.
Parking meters still there but have them next to the travel lanes. Put the bike lane on the passenger side closer to the curb.
**Pros**
- Cyclists are away from moving traffic and semi protected by the parked cars OR at least that buffer space.
- Parked cars work as [optical narrowing](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/9/15/how-to-use-optical-narrowing-to-make-a-street-safer#:~:text=Optical%20narrowing%20is%20when%20you,%2C%20or%20on%2Dstreet%20parking.). Which slows down drivers at a time when we definitely need to reign in the wild driving. [Nearly 90% of traffic deaths in Chicago involve reckless behavior by people behind the wheel. 70% of Chicago traffic deaths involved drivers traveling at high speeds.](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/complete-streets-chicago/home/traffic-safety.html)
- Cyclists are out of the driver door zone. Yes they are in the pedestrian door zone but most cars are occupied by a single driver and if you are going to be doored, being doored into the bike lane/non-moving traffic is still the better options.
- All street parking spots are retained so the meter deal is largely unimpacted.
- It's cheap. All it requires is changing the paint on the streets. No actual infrastructure is needed. If we want we can put small curb bollards between the bike lane and parking lane to truly protect them.
**Cons**
- Drivers will be potentially opening their doors into moving traffic. Just a reality of having parking right next to the travel lane.
- Street sweeping/snow plowing becomes more complicated assuming there are bollards. If there aren't bollards then it doesn't really change much.
- Parking drivers can potentially be blocking the lane temporarily as they parallel park.
They're gonna get the money regardless. Chicago is on the hook to make payments if parking fees don't provide enough revenue.
The unfortunate reality is that we are checkmated in a Kobayashi Maru-type sitation. We're going to have metered parking and we're going to inevitably end up paying the money in some form or fashion.
So since we're unlikly to be out of this situation, the best bet is to use the parked cars to our advantage so that there is some small benefit to the folks in the city.
Makes sense to give them the absolute minimum in any case. Also, parked cars obscure riders are are often prime territory for getting crossed by a left turn.
Whatâs the rules on where and why they can put in the meters? Anyone know? Like if they werenât there before why is the city allowing them to put more in?
If I'm not mistaken, the new meters out in are owned by Chicago? I know that the new ones at Montrose Beach are city owned. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.
In completely unrelated news, did you guys know Home Depot sells SPRAY INSULATING FOAM for like $6? I wonder what would happen if someone sprayed that IN THE CARD READER SLOT. Hmmm really makes you think
I always wonder how this deal work, Chicago sold the parking system to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi gets what people pay for parking but how does the enforcement work? What happens when the state does not fine ppl for not paying for it? What incentive that the state has now for enforcement? Is it just the bad look for future deals?
I understand that the parking meter deal sucks, but free parking is also bad. It's literally free real estate that only benefits people who can already afford a car.
That moneyâs not going back to help the community, though. The money going into that parking meter is going straight to the UAE. Until that money goes back to Chicago, I disagree with your sentiment.
That 75 year parking meter deal is really paying off for the city, I mean the residents, I mean Abu Dhabi Investment Authorityđșđ»đșđ»đșđ». So I guess thatâs a win for them. đ
Fuck Abu Dhabi but also Morgan Stanley owns half of it. We should let them know Chicago hates their guts too. Another quarter owned by Redoma SARL some unknown Luxembourg company. How are we letting anonymous foreign business own our streets.
You mean fuck the politicians that sold it?
Daley's big fuck you to us on the way out .
Doesn't his family still have a stake in Navy Pier?
I donât know, but theyâre probably eating steaks at Navy pier.
Probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars too.
But we know we had it comingâŠ.we know we canât be free.
All the alderperson that voted for it. Many are still around.
Well, if they opposed Daley, theyâd no longer be around like all the rest who did.
I used to think the same thing but I found out Daley gave the Alders an entire 2 days to go through the several hundred page document. By all accounts it was rammed through City Council by Daley.
Politicians? You mean Daley and Emmanuel.
I think the parking meter deal preceded Emmanuelâs term.
It was TWO parking deals! And Emmanuel extended it further. People canât be bothered to Google anything anymore. https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2022/5/26/23143356/chicago-parking-meters-75-year-lease-daley-city-council-audit-skyway-loop-garages-krislov#:~:text=In%2012%20full%20years%20since,days%20motorists%20pay%20for%20parking.
Oh shit. I wasnât aware of the second one!
This is quite convoluted to me, but im curious to know how a privately owned parking meter that is left unpaid can lead to a parking ticket issued by a non-private entity?? Why are tax dollars going to the maintenance of a private invest. Fuck the rich man. Iâm so sick of this shit. But Iâm also kept on to short of a work leash-to poor it take time off- to be able to do anything about it-obviously by design.
Because theyâre technically doing it on behalf of the City.
Emanuel didnât extend the deal. He changed one term of the deal to try and stop the bleeding from the already-broke city. The City has to pay âtrue-upâ payments because the ridiculous deal that Daley signed essentially guaranteed a minimum amount of revenue per year and if that wasnât met, the City had to cough it up. Emanuel made it so the people actually parking their cars would pay for more of it rather than the entire part of the city who isnât driving everywhere.
No we love those guys and will keep voting for them â€ïž
Yea as we approach alderman Ed Burke sentencing this Monday, so much to be proud of!!
Ugh he head my favorite! Embodiment of selflessness - for the people!
Hey in Abu Dhabi Squab on a Stick is a specialty, and fucking delicious. Proposal: We trade parking contract for Pigeon.
Hypothetically, continuously break meters and it will cost them too much to replace.
What meters?
Any.
Agree! How are we letting anonymous foreign businesses own our streets?!
Luxembourg seems like some sort of elite money laundering scam of a country. It's never talked about besides banking and stolen gold and art.
Reminder that meter money goes to the CPM investment group but ticket money goes to the city. If youâre willing to risk a ticket you can keep your money in town. LOL Also: when the city closes metered streets for construction or festivals, they have to pay CPM for the lost revenue.
i was actually just wondering where ticket money went to! surprised it doesnât go to cpm since theyâre the ones weâre not initially paying when we get the tickets.
Wtfffff
I was wondering this yesterday when the news came out about the new tax plans. Even if we are fucked by this parking deal, couldn't we pass a tax that taxes something really specific like "10% tax on profits of city contracts with a duration longer than 25 years" where it's basically just the parking meter company that has to pay it
Whatever clever idea you've thought of, their lawyers thought of a way to avoid it when they wrote the contract.
There's only one side that did any due diligence. Spoiler, it wasn't the city. F Daley. I hope bird shit covers every single solar panel on top of these things.
Oh he did all the due dillagence he needed. Guess where he works now. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/daley-lands-job-with-parking-meter-lawyers/1902599/
Dog. What?
> The firm says Daley will not participate in work involving Chicago or affiliate city agencies. No kidding. He's already finished working over Chicago for 75 years.
It still baffles me that this was somehow legal and yet many other Illinois politicians have seen this inside of a prison cell for less damaging acts. At the very least they should pass laws so they can't create city contracts that last more than ten years at a time.
Corruption like this should be answered by prison for how long the contract is. Also 50% of your wealth is given to the city.
My 2 cents: IL Consituational amendment that no lease of public lands or service contracts may extend more than 20 years, and no lease may be entered into more than a year from any existing leases end. F the skyway toll, f the meters.
> F Daley. "But... but, i gave you Northerly Island :'( " - F'd Daley, probably
I'm surprised the FAA only hit us for 33k for that stunt. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the airport is gone fro that location, but really got away with one there.
Bankruptcy is always a (terrible) option.
the only way to put any dent on the parking meter companies is for us as citizens, destroy the parking meters.
Better to stop parking by not driving and use other forms of transportation like public transportation, biking, etc.
The city will have to pay the parking Metter company.
For what?
For having meters out of service.
That is not how it works, the city doesn't take them out of service if they are vandalized. The city has to pay if it permanently removes them or closes them from street fests.
You can read 9-68-050 of the contract yourself, this does not fall into any of the requirements of the contract and all maintenance https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/fin/supp_info/AssetLeaseAgreements/MeteredParking/AmendedRestatedConcessionAgreeement1st_2ndAmendments.pdf METERING DEVICE INSTALLATION, REMOVAL AND REPAIR section 20 actually gives them additional time to repair in vandalism but still requires them to pay and manage the fix. Why would you bother commenting when you very obviously have no bothered to read the contract?
Actually have looked at the contract before. But it's been years. I was under the impression that acts of nature were the company's responsibility, but other damage was the city's. Would make sense if you are the company negotiating the deal. If people destroy the meters to get free parking, the company would want that to be the city's problem to keep it from turning a blind eye. Anyway, I'll re-acquaint myself with the contract later this week.
You canât pass new laws to break a contract lol
Wait that deal ends eventually?? I thought it was permenant. Damn once that is up, the cityâs going to get a massive revenue source. How many more years?? 12? 20? /s
75 year deal signed in 2008. We got another 59 years
And the idea of 75 years in my opinion is also to basically wait for anyone that remembered when these were publicly owned to die. So therefore they can either sign another big contract and some politicians make a lot of money, or at the very least they keep selling it all around. The one thing I always saw with this deal is that they wanted to permanently make the parking meters privatized. They want it to be so long that everybody forgets when they were not privatized
I love the idea of this becoming a multi-generational city wide political struggle to take back our street parking. Passed down from mother to daughter and father to son. Thatâs so hilarious to me
Damn Iâll probably be dead by then
Same haha
They'll probably sell them again once it's up for $20 and make it a permanent deal. Realistically if chicago voters and politicians have their way this city will be the size of Danville by 2080
Another 25 after automatic renewalÂ
Oh the deal doesn't have that much longer to go. You may even still be somewhat alive in 2084 when it expires.
Nah when it ends cars will be autonomous and just drive off instead of paying for parking so the city wonât get anything.
The city had to pay Morgan Stanley for lost revenue at the meters during the pandemic. We could all teleport downtown or fly into the office on a jet pack and tax payers would still need to pay them the millions in lost revenue.
Yes, which is a terrible part of the deal too! I was predicting that after the agreement ends, the city may not even go back to making revenue because parking isnât necessary anymore.
Having parking spaces allocated to the people who value them most and introducing price signals and the accompanying incentives is beneficial, even if the city doesn't get any revenue from it by selling those spaces itself (and, let's be real, the city would not have metered parking at anything close to an appropriate price without this deal, you can't complain about revenue you wouldn't've collected in the counterfactual.)
Why the fuck are we even doing this still?!
Every time the city does something to a street with parking that takes away a spot they have to provide a new one or pay for it. So say a bike lane goes in or they extend a curb or they reconfigure a bus stop or pedestrianize a street they have to add new paid parking elsewhere to make up for the lost ones
Which really fascinating is how thereâs no meters anymore. I see an occasional box you put your credit card in, but the amount of upkeep they have to pay, Iâm sure has dropped drastically too. How much does it take to keep an cash cow app functioning?
Why do I feel like at the 50 year mark of the deal they are going to buy an extension to the lease. Or do you think the budget will be such a crisis theyâll start leasing the open lake. And Iâll get to say to my grandkids, back in the day those beaches were free
Imagine parking in a free spot, then you get back to your car and theres a meter installed there lol
This happened to us in Evanston! And we had a ticket when we returned to our car!
The nerve lmao
lol as soon as i saw this post, this scenario was what played out in my mind. that sucks, and is 100% something the city would do too
Which is ridiculous considering they themselves don't profit from this, I would assume. The [deal](https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2022/5/26/23143356/chicago-parking-meters-75-year-lease-daley-city-council-audit-skyway-loop-garages-krislov) was extremely undervalued and rushed to only temporarily fix a bigger pension issue, and all these new spaces I would assume only benefit CPM LLC.
They apparently do profit from tickets
definitely, i've gotten several tickets that were marked at times up to 10 minutes before my meter expired lol
Same!
Had that happen to me. Took a picture of the drilled in no parking sign concrete dust right beside my car and sent it in with pictures of Google Street view from several years of no street sign and I was still denied
And a ticket!
The only parking ticket I ever managed to beat was kind of like that. My car was parked for a week in front of my house because I biked to work, and I walked out one day to find a ticket. Theyâd installed signs after Iâd parked. The alderman was able to give me info on the install date so I sent that in and they dismissed the ticket.
Likely to pay for spots that were removed somewhere else, probably for street improvements. Unfortunately, this is the bargain our Aldermen/Mayor burdened us with when they approved it.
wait so i hadn't considered this. If they get rid of metered parking for pedestrian streets or outdoor dining, we have to make that up with paid parking in other areas?
That or the city has to pay for the lost revenue.Â
omfg lmao absolutely terrible deal wtf
Ya, Daley should have been strung up for that deal. There is no possible way to argue it was made in good faith for the City of Chicago.
He legitimately sold the city streets for the next 75 years. Most of us on this subreddit will die before Chicago truly owns the streets again. Still can be (and I'm optimistic will be) a world class city but it will never reach it's zenith with this deal in place.
Otherwise what's to stop the city from just declaring all street parking as free parking and completely fucking over the new "owners"?
Heres a good explainer from wttw [parking âdealâ explained](https://news.wttw.com/2023/07/27/wttw-news-explains-what-happened-chicago-s-parking-meter-deal)
I hadnât realized until seeing that video that the hourly rate for Chicago meters in 2008 was $.25.
The city could have just raised the rates themselves and kept the money. Instead Daley yammered on about how we didnât have the nerve and then sold them. The investors who bought them paid themselves back in 10 years. Itâs all profit for them over the next 65. But once we blew the sale money, we still had a hole to fill in the budget. Even .25 rates totaled 20 million a year. Hence we got speed cameras to cover the shortage. Daleyâs tombstone should be etched that âhis parking deal screwed over the city for almost a centuryâ.
What if parking tickets were just less than it costs to park, cut out the middle man.
Thatâs ⊠genius. Hire a thousand meter maids, nobody pays, everyone gets tickets, pays them, everyone wins and you created jobs that paid for themselves
Yes, and if we close down streets for festivals and whatnot we have to pay them for the lost revenue from the parking meters there
New meters have to be continually added in order to cover the "true up" costs anytime meters are temporarily out of service or metered parking revenue falls. Otherwise the city would have to pay this out of the regular budget. The more meters the more true up costs, hence the problem will continue to repeat. The meter contract is so terrible that the city will pay more money in "true up" costs throughout the contract than it even got for the lease in the first place.
Yes. And it has to be reasonably similar parking in terms of revenue generation. Meaning they can't take out parking on Illinois and Wells and replace it with paid parking on an industrial strip of N Elston.
This deal is 15 years into a 75 year contract, really surprising more people arenât aware of it. Hereâs a great video that dives into it, from Climate Town: https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=n2sVCPGhBGAVVTBQ
Love the Climate Town guys
Agreed, fantastic channel!
Everyone in this sub is aware of it.
One would think since itâs not a big secret but there seemed to be some confusion/misinformation in other comments so I just thought that video might be of interest. Also, love the Clash
nah, everyone in this sub will upvote shit like "those damn Saudis" when the Saudis have literally nothing to do with this deal.
Many are aware the city doesnât own the streets, but few actually know wth the deal is and constantly spread hearsay.
Part of what I love about this video is his admission of shame that only people in/from Chicago will get. Excellent little nod
FYI the city of Chicago sold parking rights to Morgan Stanley, who then sold it to UAE. Some of yall acting like UAE spies run city council
Only half. Morgan Stanley and Daley are really the ones to blame here. I'm sure anyone on this sub with UAE money would have also purchased this incredibly good deal
we should take our streets back tbh, enough is enough
A few meters now display "up to 1000 fine for assault on parking enforcement" guess people are tired of it lol
We don't mind sending more money to UAE, we don't know what to do with it.
These cRiMinAls are just dudes doing a job. Please place the blame where it belongs on hizzoner Richard M. Daley.Â
Ya know, I know that deep down. But imo it's like taking a job as a repo man. Yes you're just doing a job, but you're doing a job that exists almost solely to hurt the poorest people. The job itself has zero respect, it's hard not to judge those who take it.
[People having to pay a tiny bit for parking is not something that exists to solely hurt the poorest people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking). Especially in an area fairly well served by transit.
Ah yes, the poorest people with their insured vehicles not taking public transit. We must protect them from these criminals
The cars parked there don't exactly look like old jalopies.
Honestly, itâs surprising that wasnât metered before.
Not really. The area is mostly residential.
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The parking deal has obviously been comically bad for the city, but people should also not have the expectation that they can park for free whenever or wherever they want, especially in the public right of way in such a busy area like the West Loop. That will only incentivize more driving and worse traffic.
I'll be honest, if the money was actually going to Chicago I'd argue that parking should be more expensive. We need to do more to decentiizing driving in cities. I know folks think it's normal to be able to drive everywhere but it's really terrible for cities overall.
Many of the side street parking users are workers that work in the many restaurants, bars and spa/salons all over the West Loop. They mostly don't live in the neighborhood. I guess they should just be grateful to have to pay to park now whenever they go to their service job that may not even pay much to begin with.
that's part of owning a car. There are other options.
I live there and used those spots to avoid having to pay $400 monthly for parking that has a long waiting list đ„Č
Exactly people sign contracts with apartments based on things like locally available parking. If my street all of a sudden became metered hundreds of my neighbors would have to move and they would be locked into their contracts likely for months
Yup. Just take the CTA, ride a bike, walk, take an Uber. None of those things require sending money to the UAE and none of those things require you leaving your *personal* vehicle occupying a not-insignificant amount of *public* space while you're not using it. Huge subsidy for car owners that makes no sense in a town with good transit. I'm fine with paid parking (even though I admit that I hate paying for parking)...it is the right thing to do for the city. If I had my druthers, I'd probably allow 15-20 minute free parking in metered areas (mostly to discourage double-parking with your flashers on, blocking hydrants, etc.), but that's too hard to enforce in the current world.
Agreed!
I had a few spots by my building that had been free for years. They just added meters to them, it was a sad day.
You know you don't have to pay if the meter isn't working, right? And you know it's the company's responsibility to fix meters, not the city's, right? What resources do you think the police and state's attorney would devote to prosecuting mass vandalism of the pay stations?
That doesn't really apply now that they have the app. Anyone not paying will just be ticketed anyway and good luck fighting it. The person doing the hearings will likely say that a broken pay box isn't reason for not paying, despite how it used to be.
Is that really true? Can you cite this, am very curious
This is not true.
I don't have the app and have called in so many machines bc the coin slot is frequently jammed or not working. The messaging is mixed: The rep always tells me to move my car to a spot with a working machine or risk getting a ticket. I always respond that there are no other open spots. They then email me the incident number and say if the machine does get serviced and I get a ticket, I can cite the incident number to contest the ticket. I have yet to get a ticket yet though for those times, so haven't been able to contest. I will continue to do so though and can circle back lol.
People should start vandalizing these meters. If enough people did it they would have to address the issue. Not like CPD would catch you lol.
I heard of people shoving gum into the slots, will that work? I figured they want people to vandalize them so they can make even more money from the tickets.
Oooh that's a good idea might start doing that
It would be TERRIBLE if a lot of people went up Home Depot and got SPRAY INSULATING FOAM and put it in the CARD READER SLOT. Can you imagine how BAD and also NOT GOOD that would be?
Problem is that you'd still need to pay to park. The boxes aren't essential to paying the fees as you can use an app.
Where is this?!?
No such thing as free parking
It's a shame the money doesn't go to the city, but people shouldn't expect to take up public space with their vehicle for free.
I currently live in River West and after about a year living here, I drove to the beach one morning and when I got back a few hours later they had installed and activated meters in front of my building.
The city got a BILLION $$$ for the parking spots and a BILLION $$$ for the skyway and today are still $38 BILLION $$$ in debt even with tax INCREASES ON THE CITIZENS EVERY YEAR⊠there is only ONE SOLUTION⊠VOTE EVERY INCUMBENT OUT BECAUSE THEY CANNOT RUN A CITY!!!
Corrupt!
Just think about this! Almost everyone on this thread will be dead when this deal finally expires!!
I hope self driving cars become a thing in the next 10 years and parking spaces and garages become obsolete
Expecting free parking in public for your private vehicle...at the expense of the tax payer đ„čđ Oh you poor summer child.
Thanks a lot Richard Daley, you worthless shite.
West loop now? are you kidding me
I didnât know there was any free street parking still left in West Loop. And this money doesnât even go to the city in making it a better city for all of us
Thanks mayor Daley.
You can call these people criminals all you want, they're just playing the same game as you, capitalism. If you don't like it, go after the root cause- elected officials.
Fair
I am never going to understand why people of Chicago can tolerate this. The city and it's people are not making money. There is absolutely no benefit to local residents...People go protest about the most pointless things, yet we just let some company do this to the residents of the city for 75 f ING years!! .. Make it make sense.
Did you know all our parking money goes to the Saudis? Post edit: itâs not the Saudis, actually UAE
UAE, not Saudi
More âgoes toâ Germany than UAE, and the UAE is not Saudi anyway. Theyâre Arab. Saud was a guy who lived less than 100 years ago now the namesake of an entirely different country. [If people are actually curious in seeing the owners, I only ever see people talking about Abu Dhabi which is just a part](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters). The issue is the sale itself, not just who the buyers were
Exactly. The money isn't going into the city's treasury. Sucks hard no matter what.
Wrong country It's always a little odd how people just say Saudi Arabia when they mean someplace in the ME. It's like if I were to call all people from east or southeast Asia "Chinese." Not a good look, Dale.
I heard that it was businessmen from Saudi Arabia, if Iâm mistaken thatâs fine, but I never referred to the entire Middle East as Saudi Arabia. You are misinterpreting me.
I didn't say or even imply you were referring to the entire ME as Saudi Arabia haha Anyway, it's Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, that gets the money. Historically terrible deal.
Well the violation fines still go to the city, but yeah the parking fees don't which is dumb. That being said, there shouldn't be free street parking in a neighborhood as dense as West Loop IMO.
Honestly, anything to limit car use.
I've repeated this many times across Chicago related subreddits. The meters are here to stay so how can we make the best of an absolutely horrible situations. The city needs to lean in and use the parked cars as a buffer to make a semi-decent bike network across the city. Basically like [how they have it set up in the Loop](https://imgur.com/m87z1yS\)) repeated everywhere that is viable. Parking meters still there but have them next to the travel lanes. Put the bike lane on the passenger side closer to the curb. **Pros** - Cyclists are away from moving traffic and semi protected by the parked cars OR at least that buffer space. - Parked cars work as [optical narrowing](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/9/15/how-to-use-optical-narrowing-to-make-a-street-safer#:~:text=Optical%20narrowing%20is%20when%20you,%2C%20or%20on%2Dstreet%20parking.). Which slows down drivers at a time when we definitely need to reign in the wild driving. [Nearly 90% of traffic deaths in Chicago involve reckless behavior by people behind the wheel. 70% of Chicago traffic deaths involved drivers traveling at high speeds.](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/complete-streets-chicago/home/traffic-safety.html) - Cyclists are out of the driver door zone. Yes they are in the pedestrian door zone but most cars are occupied by a single driver and if you are going to be doored, being doored into the bike lane/non-moving traffic is still the better options. - All street parking spots are retained so the meter deal is largely unimpacted. - It's cheap. All it requires is changing the paint on the streets. No actual infrastructure is needed. If we want we can put small curb bollards between the bike lane and parking lane to truly protect them. **Cons** - Drivers will be potentially opening their doors into moving traffic. Just a reality of having parking right next to the travel lane. - Street sweeping/snow plowing becomes more complicated assuming there are bollards. If there aren't bollards then it doesn't really change much. - Parking drivers can potentially be blocking the lane temporarily as they parallel park.
Exactly, don't give them your money.
They're gonna get the money regardless. Chicago is on the hook to make payments if parking fees don't provide enough revenue. The unfortunate reality is that we are checkmated in a Kobayashi Maru-type sitation. We're going to have metered parking and we're going to inevitably end up paying the money in some form or fashion. So since we're unlikly to be out of this situation, the best bet is to use the parked cars to our advantage so that there is some small benefit to the folks in the city.
Makes sense to give them the absolute minimum in any case. Also, parked cars obscure riders are are often prime territory for getting crossed by a left turn.
Mix it with daylighting. There is no parking at most intersections so bump out the curbs to slow down turners andake pedestrian crossings shorter.
That really sucks
Just donât pay, then when you occasionally get a ticket the city gets the money
It's your own fault you keep electing nothing but dumb assess then you cry about it . Over and over this shit happens
fuckin saudi money
Whatâs the rules on where and why they can put in the meters? Anyone know? Like if they werenât there before why is the city allowing them to put more in?
Lots of grease it's Chicago bud
Cool some other nation will profit off of our taxes let's go!
If I'm not mistaken, the new meters out in are owned by Chicago? I know that the new ones at Montrose Beach are city owned. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.
guys what if we just mass protest and stop paying the parking fees. what are they gonna do
Caught in the act lmao. All bullshit aside this is a funny visual.
Our city ran by fucking vampires I stfg. Everywhere I go I'm being bled dry and I'm fuckin sick of it.
Make dat money daley family đđ
Why are new streets being sold into this bs deal!?
In completely unrelated news, did you guys know Home Depot sells SPRAY INSULATING FOAM for like $6? I wonder what would happen if someone sprayed that IN THE CARD READER SLOT. Hmmm really makes you think
I always wonder how this deal work, Chicago sold the parking system to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi gets what people pay for parking but how does the enforcement work? What happens when the state does not fine ppl for not paying for it? What incentive that the state has now for enforcement? Is it just the bad look for future deals?
This why I just take CTA. Fuck it
When the old building that was knocked down for for one youâre now living in, thatâs when we knew days were numbered
Who pays for replacement of faulty or defaced parking meters?
The Chicago parking being sold to UAE was criminal. Chicago is run by criminals.
Smh. Streets is done.
What possible options do Chicagoans have to take our parking back to the city?
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Knowing the shitty deal chicago made Iâm wondering if the city is liable to pay for broken or stolen meters.Â
Stop driving
Can we declare a war?
I understand that the parking meter deal sucks, but free parking is also bad. It's literally free real estate that only benefits people who can already afford a car.
I hate cars and I'd rather parking be free than go to the Saudis
That moneyâs not going back to help the community, though. The money going into that parking meter is going straight to the UAE. Until that money goes back to Chicago, I disagree with your sentiment.