It's official: City parking privatized; rates to soar
PRIVATIZED | Dig deep: Aldermen OK costly parking meter deal paying city $1.15 bil.
Chicago aldermen “afraid” to increase parking meter rates for the last 20 years on Thursday gave a private contractor carte blanche to raise them sky-high — in exchange for a cool $1.15 billion.
With just three days to contemplate a 75-year transaction, the City Council voted 40 to 5 to unload a fourth major asset — Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters — and sock it to motorists lucky enough to find a space on Chicago streets.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
“We’re asked to do these things in such a hurry, we can’t really meet our obligation as a legislative body…What it does is make us partners in our own marginalization and I find that profoundly troubling,” said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th).
Joining Preckwinkle in voting “no” were aldermen Leslie Hairston (5th), Billy Ocasio (26th), Scott Waguespack (32nd) and Rey Colon (35th).
“We’re no longer nickel-and-diming people. We’re quartering them — as in 25 cents….No one carries that amount of quarters,” said Ocasio, who emptied a piggy-bank filled with $26 worth of quarters to dramatize the children’s piggybanks he warned parents will have to raid to feed the meters.
Ald. Brian Doherty (41st) warned that, without the parking meter deal, aldermen will be forced to fill a $150 million hole in the 2009 budget.
Mayor Daley plans to divide the proceeds into four funds to stave off another painful round of layoffs and tax hikes next year, balance city budgets through 2012, fund human service programs and set up a “rainy day fund” until the moribund economy makes a comeback.
“Are we getting a little nickel-and-dimed? Yes. Have we been? Yes. [But] if we don’t make this move, it’s gonna be a lot worse. It won’t be what we’re getting nickel-and-dimed about. We’re going to get crushed,” Doherty said.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), whose ward includes one out of seven parking meters, added: “We’ve run out of options. This city cannot handle another general tax increase…For those people who choose to drive downtown and avail themselves of these metered parking spaces, we’re happy to have you, but you need to pay a fair-market rate.”
It used to be enough to feed the meters on Chicago streets. Not anymore. The operative word is gorge.
Downtown motorists who now pay $3 an hour will cough up $3.50 Jan.1, pay a whopping $6.50 an hour by 2013 and feed the meters 24/7, including holidays. Neighborhood parking rates that now range from 25 to 75 cents an hour will rise to $1 in Jan. 1 and rise steadily to $2 by 2013.
After 2013, the City Council is obliged to increase meter revenues by the “rate of inflation,” either by raising rates, adding meters or increasing operating hours. If aldermen “negatively impact” meter revenue, the private operator will have to be “made whole.”
Parking enforcement will also get tougher. Not only will the partnership that includes Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and LAZ Parking issue parking tickets to “supplement” the city’s efforts. The “broken meter” defense can now be used only by motorists who report the meters “inoperable or malfunctioning within 24 hours” of the incident.
Seventy percent of Chicago’s meter rates have been frozen for two decades. Earlier this week, Daley candidly acknowledged that the mayor and aldermen were “afraid” to raise the rates.
“Maybe this body should have looked at this [steep schedule of increases] a long time ago,” said Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd).
“Why [for] 20 years haven’t we raised rates? It’s our fault. It’s no one else’s fault,” said Ald. Tom Tunney (44th).
Daley has now unloaded four city assets for a combined $6 billion. The sell-off started with the Chicago Skyway ($1.83 billion), continued with downtown parking garages ($563 million) and culminated in the sale of Midway Airport ($2.5 billion).
What’s next? The city is already peddling its waste transfer stations. Chicago water filtration plants are the next logical choice. But, who knows?
“We’re not going to tell you now,” Daley said earlier this week.