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On Tuesday, the City Council called on Tim Mitchell, Daley's Superintendent of Parks, to answer questions about the District's plans to install parking meters at city beaches this fall. The Park District will contract with Standard Parking to manage the meters, which will charge users a dollar an hour for parking at city beaches. In July 38th Ward Alderman Tom Allen expressed outrage at the deal, saying "The slogan is, 'Come out and play' —not 'come out and pay.' We want to revisit this. People own the lakefront. People own the beach. In this economy, that's the only vacation people can afford."
Mitchell said that aldermen only complained after the blowback from the city's own botched parking meter deal. "The way we view it here is adding a small fee that will impact those actually using the service — in this case, about $1-an-hour to park at the beach — is better than having a property tax increase," Mitchell told the council Tuesday, noting that the Park District has resisted raising property taxes for the last four years.
The district hopes to raise about $1 million dollars by charging for parking. 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore says that he'll use his ward stipend to stave off the meters at Leone and Loyola Parks. For the rest of the city, though, free parking at more than 4,400 spaces will end in about four to six weeks.
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Is there a map anywhere or a listing of what streets/beaches will be getting meters? Will Stockton, Cannon and Lincoln Park West going through Lincoln Park be getting meters?
I don't get the outrage!
At least half of the parkers are suburbanites using Chicago parks & beaches for free!
Parasites all!
This is found money for the Park District.
I agree that there shouldn't be much complaining. If you cant pay a dollar for the privelage of parking at the beach, then take the bus there. The meters should end 9 pm though, so residents can park there for free overnight.
I can see both sides of this argument, but for $1 million a year, I feel like this is pretty silly. That's about $0.33/person in Chicago over the next year. Are you telling me the city can't come up with that money to keep the lakefront completely accessible? (I know, use the buses & El). I typically don't drive to the lakefront and hope others will follow suit, but really, is anything in this city provided by the city anymore or is there a usage fee for everything?!
I don't know if I like residents being able to park for free overnight. As an example, I play soccer on Saturday mornings at River Park. There's about 100 parking spaces, but when I get there at 7:30 am, every single spot is taken even though there's about 15 people at the park. Also, conveniently, the entire area around the park is zoned parking. What's the point of parking spaces in a park, if people visiting the park can't park there?
This city will never have enough money, no matter what it does, because it is corrupt.
There is not a right to free parking. It is always subsidized by whoever is providing the parking: whether it is the Walgreens with a parking lot or the pary district paving over the park to provide a parking lot.
Short of the mis-management of the parking deal the city cut, the parking has been handled very well: the new pay boxes are easy to use, take credit cards, free up street space & run on solar power.