CITY HALL’S GOLDEN TICKETS
Crackdown on illegal weekend parking designed to aid businesses — but will also help city’s bottom line
A crackdown on illegal weekend parking in Chicago has led to nearly 4,500 additional tickets being written so far this year.
To create parking turnover that helps businesses serve more customers and reverse a 5 percent drop- off in ticket writing, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2017 budget called for having the city’s parking enforcement aides work in tandem with “contractor teams” on weekends.
City Hall is also upgrading the software used to issue parking tickets to include “data analytics” to help pinpoint where to deploy those weekend ticket writers for maximum efficiency.
Twenty parking enforcement aides were reassigned to work weekends with employees from Serco, the private contractor previously working solo on weekend enforcement.
The teams were sent to bustling entertainment districts like downtown, River North and Wicker Park where bars, restaurants, nightclubs and stores serve as magnets for illegal parking.
“As a result, nearly 4,500 additional tickets were written in the first weekends of 2017,” Mary Kay Accurso, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Finance, wrote in an email to the Chicago Sun- Times.
“Tickets are being written where enforcement is needed, which includes primarily the Central Business District and surrounding business areas. The Department of Finance is performing weekend enforcement to help ensure parking turnover in and around businesses. If there is no enforcement, vehicles park for hours, often preventing patrons from being able to access a business or shop at a store.”
Parking tickets in the Central Business District range from $ 60 for parking in a no- parking zone to $ 65 for parking at an expired meter.
Other fines include $ 90 for standing or parking in a bus lane; $ 100 for parking in a no- parking zone during rush- hour, double parking or standing; and $ 150 for parking or standing in a bicycle path or alley.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly ( 42nd) said the weekend crackdown is “very helpful to local businesses” because it creates “more frequent turnover of parking spaces for other customers.”
“The bulk of the enforcement is needed in the evenings and on weekends, especially in the hospitality corridors like Hubbard and Rush streets,” Reilly wrote in an email to Sun- Times.
“Folks are parking illegally in loading and tow zones, and valet companies park many of their customers’ cars illegally on the street.”
Ald. Brian Hopkins ( 2nd), who also represents parts of downtown, also welcomed the crackdown.
“There’s been a general perception that you are less likely to get a parking ticket for not paying at a metered spot late at night and on weekends,” Hopkins said. “That perception has been out there for awhile, and it’s something we need to counter just to raise the compliance rate.”
Hopkins urged the city to take it a step further by cracking down on other forms of illegal parking.
“Loading zones, rush- hour restrictions, fire hydrants, no standing, no stopping zones. Places where an illegally parked car has an impact on traffic. That’s the real problem,” Hopkins said. “And we’re not doing nearly enough to crack down on that type of parking.”
Accurso insisted the weekend crackdown is not aimed at boosting parking ticket revenue, which amounts to about $ 185 million a year.
Even so, that is likely to be a side benefit at a time when booting and ticketing are going in opposite directions.
The Chicago Sun- Times reported last fall that the city booted 4,995 vehicles a month during the first seven months of 2016, a 10 percent increase over the same period the year before.
That provided a windfall for the city on the heels of Emanuel’s decision to raise the booting fee from $ 60 to $ 100 and set the stage to give scofflaws the long- awaited opportunity to remove their own wheel- locking Denver boots instead of waiting for city crews to arrive.
City boot crews work from a list that includes more than 500,000 eligible license plates, many registered to motorists who live outside the city.
While booting was on the rise, the number of parking tickets issued during the first seven months of last year was down 5 percent, to 1.31 million.
Not surprisingly, the ward where the most tickets were written was the downtown 42nd, with 142,663 tickets.
The next highest wards for parking tickets were the 44th Ward, which includes Wrigley Field ( 60,528); the 2nd ( 55,574); the 1st ( 50,553); the 25th ( 49,203); the 27th ( 48,000); the 43rd ( 43,191); the 34rd ( 34,592); the 46th ( 33,048); and the 4th ( 32,404).