Beyond the rate hike, I think that the change in parking regulation hours / days is outrageous. I live in a residential area of River North and the meters were previously 9am-6pm, M-F, with permit parking after 6pm. With the new company taking over, the meters are in effect at $2/hr (2 hour limit) from 8am-9pm, 7 days a week.
As a result, my once lovely residential area is no longer visitor or resident friendly. My sister, who’s in college, can’t come stay with me for the weekend because we can’t park her car on the street Saturday – Sunday. My friends in the suburbs can’t come visit for a weekend afternoon because we can’t leave their car for more than 2 hours on the street (that means no shopping on Michigan Ave, no beach, no zoo, etc). My boyfriend prefers me to come up by him where there aren’t meters – he hasn’t come to my place in over two weeks (who has that many quarters anyway?!?).
In general, if I wanted the resident unfriendly parking restrictions, I would’ve moved to a highrise in the Gold Coast. I hope that people protest and don’t park at the meters – so far, it looks like the street parking has been pretty sparse in the evenings… I hope it keeps up and sends a message: be nice to the residents – we’re who make up Chicago. If the city government operated even just a little more efficiently, they wouldn’t need to make the city unfriendly to residents and their visitors…
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