Lake Forest Shows Chicago How to Generate Beach Revenue
By tradition and case law, Chicago’s lakefront is supposed to be free, and I find no legal citations that say parking meters are allowed.
Yet, the Chicago Park District intends to install 4,000 parking meters, charging $1 an hour, in its lakefront parks, doing away with the longstanding tradition of free parking.
Even though I defended (in theory) the big increases charged for use of the city’s curbside meters, I think that the Park District is going about it in the wrong way as a revenue-raiser. A better plan is:
Make only suburbanites pay the higher tariff. Especially, anyone from Lake Forest, which has raised the practice of nicking out-of-towners for the use of their beach to a high art. Fair is fair, considering the ingenious ways that North Shore suburbs have figured out how to keep out the riff-raff.
In Chicago, the beaches indeed are free. No one checks your driver’s license or municipal car sticker to confirm that you are a Chicagoan before you can use the beach or park conveniently nearby. But try to use, say, the Lake Forest municipal beach, and you’ll pay.
By all rights, you should be able to use the Lake Forest beach for free because Illinois taxpayers paid for some major improvements years ago. The state isn’t—and shouldn’t be—in the habit of barring its taxpayers from using facilities they paid for. I raised the issue back then in a Chicago Sun-Times column, but the difference between then and now is that back then, anyone could, in fact, use the beach without charge. The only problem then was finding a convenient place to park. Now you have to pay to use the beach, and finding a parking spot still is a problem—again by Lake Forest’s design.
Here are the Lake Forest rules, as posted on the swanky northern suburb’s website. Residents use the beach free, but need to show proof of residency. Residents also can park at the beach lot for free, but non-residents must park at a downtown municipal or Metra parking lot, located more than a mile away. It’ll cost you $3 a day to park. If you want to chance parking on a side street closer to the beach, you can get fined $125. Of course, when you finally slog your way to the beach, you’ll have to fork over $10.
There is at least one remarkable alternative, as explained by this ad on Craig’s List:
“Attention Beach Visitors: Rent 1, 2, 3 or 4 off-street private parking spaces one block to Lake Forest beach. Automobiles and motorcycles only. Available 7 days a week for beach visitors – May 1st to October 1st. Overnight parking prohibited. $250.00 month each space or $1,100.00 for 5 months. Additional discounts for renting multi-spaces.”
So, here’s my proposal. Suburbanites (or anyone without a Chicago vehicle sticker) has to park at least a mile away from any city beach (for whatever the going rate is, and if it’s downtown, it’ll be a bundle). Anyone caught parking on a Chicago side street closer to the beach without a city sticker gets fined $125. Of course, when a suburbanite gets to the beach, he has to pay a $10 entrance fee.
I don’t know how legal or practical this is, but it could afford some relief to Chicagoans. Either in the form of less demand for lakeshore parking, or in terms of extra revenue, maybe enough that they wouldn’t have to feed the Park District’s meters.
Unlike Chicago’s street parking meters, which have been raised to sky
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Dennis Byrne is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer
By tradition and case law, Chicago’s lakefront is supposed to be free, and I find no legal citations that say parking meters are allowed.
Yet, the Chicago Park District intends to install 4,000 parking meters, charging $1 an hour, in its lakefront parks, doing away with the longstanding tradition of free parking.
Even though I defended (in theory) the big increases charged for use of the city’s curbside meters, I think that the Park District is going about it in the wrong way as a revenue-raiser. A better plan is:
Make only suburbanites pay the higher tariff. Especially, anyone from Lake Forest, which has raised the practice of nicking out-of-towners for the use of their beach to a high art. Fair is fair, considering the ingenious ways that North Shore suburbs have figured out how to keep out the riff-raff.
In Chicago, the beaches indeed are free. No one checks your driver’s license or municipal car sticker to confirm that you are a Chicagoan before you can use the beach or park conveniently nearby. But try to use, say, the Lake Forest municipal beach, and you’ll pay.
By all rights, you should be able to use the Lake Forest beach for free because Illinois taxpayers paid for some major improvements years ago. The state isn’t—and shouldn’t be—in the habit of barring its taxpayers from using facilities they paid for. I raised the issue back then in a Chicago Sun-Times column, but the difference between then and now is that back then, anyone could, in fact, use the beach without charge. The only problem then was finding a convenient place to park. Now you have to pay to use the beach, and finding a parking spot still is a problem—again by Lake Forest’s design.
Here are the Lake Forest rules, as posted on the swanky northern suburb’s website. Residents use the beach free, but need to show proof of residency. Residents also can park at the beach lot for free, but non-residents must park at a downtown municipal or Metra parking lot, located more than a mile away. It’ll cost you $3 a day to park. If you want to chance parking on a side street closer to the beach, you can get fined $125. Of course, when you finally slog your way to the beach, you’ll have to fork over $10.
There is at least one remarkable alternative, as explained by this ad on Craig’s List:
“Attention Beach Visitors: Rent 1, 2, 3 or 4 off-street private parking spaces one block to Lake Forest beach. Automobiles and motorcycles only. Available 7 days a week for beach visitors – May 1st to October 1st. Overnight parking prohibited. $250.00 month each space or $1,100.00 for 5 months. Additional discounts for renting multi-spaces.”
So, here’s my proposal. Suburbanites (or anyone without a Chicago vehicle sticker) has to park at least a mile away from any city beach (for whatever the going rate is, and if it’s downtown, it’ll be a bundle). Anyone caught parking on a Chicago side street closer to the beach without a city sticker gets fined $125. Of course, when a suburbanite gets to the beach, he has to pay a $10 entrance fee.
I don’t know how legal or practical this is, but it could afford some relief to Chicagoans. Either in the form of less demand for lakeshore parking, or in terms of extra revenue, maybe enough that they wouldn’t have to feed the Park District’s meters.
Unlike Chicago’s street parking meters, which have been raised to sky
You make an interesting point about the Lake Forest Beach.
I am sure you forget to point out that they were the last free beach on the North Shore. Highland Park, Willmette and others charge for their beach. And I am sure you forgot that the State of Illinois charges for its beach park and the US Gov’t charges for its National Parks with Beaches in Indiana. And I am sure you forgot that people in Lake Forest paid to restore the beach via a bond issuance, not the State of Illinois.
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