In Defense of High Parking Meter Rates
Hold on a second; where does it say that you’re entitled to park cheaply on a public street?
You’re not, but that’s the assumption behind all the crabbing about the city’s “obscene” increase in parking meter rates. Put aside questions about the competence of the company now running the meters and whether Mayor Richard M. Daley could have squeezed another billion or so out of the company for the 75-year lease. Also, put aside how badly the company has bollixed the job and questions about whether it was a sweetheart deal.
That’s a lot to put aside, but if your gripe is about what it now costs to park on a street in Chicago, then you’ve lost me. I had thought from the decibel level that you were being asked for an arm and a leg, but then I looked at the rates. In neighborhoods, it used to cost just a quarter an hour; now will cost a buck and by 2013 jump to two bucks. Top rates in the Loop will rocket to—gasp!–$3.50 an hour, from $3, still a bargain compared with parking garage rates. The Loop rate will go to $6.50 in 2013, which, I suspect, still will be a bargain.
All of which are the basis for headlines screaming, “Parking will cost four times as much!” “Meter rates are the last straw!” “Citizens’ revolt brewing!” “Not even the Hired Truck scandal has drawn as much ire!”
Boo hoo. If you ask me, the rates should be higher.
It’s called the law of supply and demand, which says it is reasonable to expect that prices will reflect the level of demand for a commodity, in this case street parking. You circle the block in an endless quest for a parking place because the demand has outstripped supply, leading to the logical outcome of higher prices. If the prices rise too high, then you’ll be able to find more parking spots opening up, lucky you. And if it turns out that there are too many empty places because of lax demand, then prices reasonably should fall too.
Here the objection will be raised that the parking company can nick us for anything it wants to because “we don’t have any alternatives.” Oh, stop. We keep hearing from urbanologists that driving (and by extension, parking) is bad. Bad for the environment, bad use of land, bad use of energy. So, if driving has imposed such large social costs, then the privilege of temporarily storing your vehicle in a convenient spot on a public way should come at a premium. If you don’t want to pay those extra six bits to park, take public transportation. Drive less frequently. Car pool. Combine errands. Bike. Walk.
Here’s another way to look at it: It’s an effective tax on suburbanites and out-of-towners (the later being the favorite target of city hotel taxes, etc.) This is a levy that doesn’t fall exclusively on Chicagoans as, say, property taxes do. If somebody wants to drive in from Schaumburg, polluting the air and using extra gasoline, then the higher parking fee is the penalty to be paid for the social costs incurred.
Speaking of suburbs, we are instructed that they’re a waste of space, money and energy because they have backyards and other land gobblers, are the provinces of anomie and isolation, and so forth. Cities are better, we’re told, because, among other things, of their densities, sensible use of land, economies of scale, and so forth.
If that’s so—and who am I as a suburbanite to argue the point—then it seems to me that the price of a parking spot, just like the price of land on which sits an office, apartment building or store, should reflect its value. If high densities are so great, then paying for the consequences of those densities isn’t unfair. It’s what you should expect.
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Dennis Byrne is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer
Good perspective Dennis. I agree that supply and demand should apply to parking meters especially in the high demand areas around the loop. Your article fails to address the hardships faced by people living in other neighborhoods.
After years of living on the Northside, I moved to the Southside (42nd and California) a little over a year ago. The primary draw was cheap rent and easy street parking. Until the meter rate went up in my neighborhood it was easy to find parking near my house. I suspect that lots of people would arrive home around 7pm, throw in a couple of quarters to get them to the 9pm cutoff and leave for work before 8am the next day. Now, it’s become nearly impossible to park within three blocks of my house if I arrive in the evening. The metered spots in the neighborhood are 90% unoccupied at night.
Sure, we’re not entitled to park for free in Chicago but try to imagine if your suburb put meters up and down your residential street. The city has placed an unreasonable burden on the residents of working class neighborhoods. Let them charge $10/hr in the loop – any sane working class person wouldn’t dream of driving and parking in the loop when so many solid public transit options are available. Cut the little guy a break.
A concern that Mr. Byrne doesn\’t bring up is the effect upon small businesses. Many such businesses view it as another tax burden upon them rather than the out-of towner. One such restaurant owner in West Town informed me business has dropped 20% in what he feels is a double whammy of the economy and higher parking rates.
I’m not sure why this article is on the better government website. Either the author is trying to win points with Mayor Daley, is not terribly bright or both. That aside, I hope Inspector Hoffman and Patrick Fitzgerald keep going after Mayor Daley. Like Fitzgerald got Ryan and Blago, I hope Daley is next.
You’re absolutely correct, no one is entitled to cheap parking.
However, if you want to chase away people who spend money at local businesses, then raising parking prices is a very efficient way to do it.
Shame on King Daley II and the hacks in the city council who voted to throw our business community under the bus.
Excuse you, Dennis Byrne. This is not a matter of supply and demand, rather of monopoly and corruption. Any mayor or local government, whatever, can decide that all city’s parking will be paid now and the residents would have no choice. Furthermore, the tax is also incurred by people in town not just the visitors from the suburbs.
Dennis, I agree with your general premise that parking meter rates should be dictated by supply and demand, and most of the rates citywide were underpriced.
But the methodology in which the rates have been raised belies your argument. That is, the city and/or the subcontractor did not provide any support for determining the schedule of annual rate increases; rather, the hourly rates were arbitrarily increased, likely to meet a preordained financial figure. There’s been a significant amount of anecdotal evidence that a horde of historical street parkers have abandoned their routine. I suspect the fiscal impact (of course, this data will not be shared with the public by City Hall, either because they don’t have it or don’t want taxpayers to peruse it), at least in any edible format.
The law of supply and demand necessitates a fluidity that is blatantly lacking here. The city is essentially powerless to lower the rates without paying a prohibitive monetary penalty.
It strikes me as paticularly cowardly that the Daley administration, which has aggressively pursued a cornucopia of regressive and distasteful fee-generating policies, couldn’t have used its bully pulpit to raise the meter rates without the assistance of a third party. They determined that, along with the meek and worthless city council, some faceless conglomerate would take the political heat for such policies. It was a gross miscalculation, and further evidence of Daley’s inability or unwillingness to govern appropriately.
‘Supply and demand’ is funny. If privateers could sell street parking spots without regulation street parking would cost just as much as garages. Streets are the most public of all public property – they carry the lifeblood (quite literally) of our cities. We have no right to park cheaply (just as we have no right to drive a car) but the manner of the price increase and administrative changes in street parking have been absolutely ridiculous.
You’re barking up the wrong tree, I think- the question isn’t the cost of parking but how it’s handled, the rate of increase, and the level of service to the public, not just suburban commuters with soapboxes. For us city residents your note is about our streets, our property and our lives, not a commuter parking lot. Take the train.
I think some of the original outraged was based not so much on the dollar amount but the number of quarters you’d have to carry around to feed meters in the Loop (and elsewhere). Now that the pay boxes take credit cards, I suspect a lot of people are coming around to not being too terribly bothered by a few bucks to park for an hour or so (as opposed to astronomical rates at parking garages).
You raise some good points but I feel you’re oversimplifying and brushing the real issue aside. The Olympics would be nice too but NOT under Daley’s leadership. The problems is lack of transparency, lack of oversight, and selling the future of Chicago short to subsidize the Daley administration’s vision of Chicago as a “world-class city”. That means overpriced housing costs, more taxes, more fees, and anyone who can’t afford it get out. Never thought I would move back to the suburbs but I along with my family will be doing so soon. Living in Chicago is simply becoming a waste of money. Good luck filling all those condos…
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