7 ms·

What people miss about this deal is that the city was literally losing money on parking meters before the deal because it was so incompetently managed. Chicago

• dharmab 3y ago
  But the city also has to guarantee the company lost revenue if the city removes meters. So any efforts to redesign streets with less cars and parking can't proceed.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • mortenjorck 3y ago
    It is, in a word, awful. A perfect example of this is on Chicago Avenue, where the city added dedicated bus lanes… except they aren’t really, because even though you can’t drive in them unless you’re a bus, you can still park in them. Absolute Kafkaesque urban planning.
    • idbehold 3y ago
      I'm sure there's something in the contract to prevent this, but couldn't they keep the meters and then post a "No Parking" or "Bus Parking Only" or even "Parking from 11:59PM-12:00AM"?
      • matthewowen 3y ago
        Keep the parking, but make the entire street bus only. Good luck getting to that parking spot!
        • User23 3y ago
          Or put cowcatchers on the busses and drive right on through the bus lane. Sure you can legally park there, and you can get your car legally demolished in a bus collision.
        • dh2022 3y ago
          The city would then have to pay out of their pocket for the revenue miss due to not collecting parking on that "entire street bus only". the guaranteed payments are the crux of the matter. (Not that I feel sorry for the city of Chicago or its citizens. Why did they keep electing the same corrupt people over and over again?)
      • justrealist 3y ago
        The thing about the contract law is that it is adjudicated by humans who are enthusiastic about shooting down BS attempts to wiggle out of binding terms.
      • alistairSH 3y ago
        Nice try but the contract has revenue guarantees. The city has to pay whether or not the parking spaces get used.
        • idbehold 3y ago
          I mean, if they're allowed to remove the parking (even if the city still has to pay) that means they could get rid of the Kafkaesque bus lane situation, no?
          • alistairSH 3y ago
            Yeah, they just can’t get out without paying.
    • pgwhalen 3y ago
      Where are you thinking of? I live in West Town right along Chicago Ave and nobody parks in the bus lanes there.
  • gok 3y ago
    The city itself would be losing that revenue if it retained control, and even with the deal they still need to budget the loss in parking ticket revenue. The primary reason the parking deal never goes away is that it allows the city to blame "investors" for doing something it was already wants to do (keep lots of street parking).
    • HDThoreaun 3y ago
      > The city itself would be losing that revenue if it retained control Ok but as an urban planner it's a whole lot easier to tell your boss "hey we're removing 5 parking, spaces we'll lose x dollars per year in parking fees" than it is to say "hey we're removing 5 parking spaces and we need to come up with $5 million to pay the parking company"
  • gota 3y ago
    What does the contract say about costs to replacing broken meters? Or broken windows at the company' C level suites houses? The "answer" here is either to suck it up (which will happen) or, if you allow room for it, it starts with little acts of violence and ends with effective change or full blown riots Just to clarify - I'm not advocating for anything like that. I'm just saying - try to picture the people from Paris in this situation and tell me what would happen (and if the contract would stand) The courts absolutely fold versus popular pressure
  • sandworm101 3y ago
    >> any efforts to redesign streets with less cars and parking can't proceed. Why? Is "parking" limited to cars? The city can apply the meters to bicycle/scooter/ebike/skateboard parking. Once upon a time many bicycles were regulated and some even required license plates. Chicago seems free to switch people other modes of transport and simply continue the parking fee system accordingly.
    • acdha 3y ago
      It’s a revenue guarantee: they can’t put in a streatery or bus/bike lane without paying the company what they would have made if it remained normal street parking. It’s so fabulously corrupt that they should have a team working full time trying to find grounds to invalidate the contract.
  • tomschlick 3y ago
    > But the city also has to guarantee the company lost revenue if the city removes meters This makes complete sense though. The company and the city signed a deal for X amount of meters for Y amount of years. That no doubt went into the financial planning for Profit/Loss. If the city were to remove meters they would be breaking the contract as there are no longer X meters and that much less revenue that the company paid upfront for.
    • dharmab 3y ago
      Most people's complaint about this is that Y is an excessively high number.
      • spullara 3y ago
        You might be able to negotiate a shorter term with increased rates.
• spamizbad 3y ago
  The "incompetently managed" mostly came down to the fact that it undercharged drivers. The price of parking downtown nearly doubled a few years after the deal went through.
  • gok 3y ago
    Yes, and they refused to appropriately increase pricing because it was a cheap political gimmick.
    • xp84 3y ago
      Maybe this points the way forward for the federal budget. We can outsource the IRS to a few big banks and let them set tax rates as they please. They'll raise taxes, because they're definitely too low by most comparative standards, and then people (and our elected leaders!) can all curse those evil greedy banks for the high taxes instead of the government (who no longer has any control!) (This comment is not serious, btw.)
• topkai22 3y ago
  It sounds like the real problem with the deal isn’t the financial aspect but the length. 75 years is just too long without the opportunity to renegotiate or change vendors. If it had been 10 or 20 years then the city would be in a much better negotiating position. But it sounds like 75 years was what Mayor Daley needed to make up the budget shortfall that year, so Chicago is stuck.
  • spullara 3y ago
    Have they tried negotiating a rate hike and a term length shortening to get the same return on investment?
• pydry 3y ago
  "Defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital." -- Noam Chomsky What people miss about privatization is that deliberate defunding and deliberate enshittification are always the first and second steps. Then the private sector "rescues" you from the deliberately engineered incompetence of the public sector while taking a fat, fat cut. It's the same reason why I'm struggling to see a doctor in the UK right now (the tories want US style healthcare profit margins). Or why the USPS has to fund pensions for yet to be born employees.
• mcdonje 3y ago
  The point of parking meters and tickets is not to make money. It's to keep the roads usable and equitably distribute a finite resource. Looking at parking like a profit center is perverse, and treating it that way creates perverse incentives.
  • vixen99 3y ago
    Not to make money? Is that true in the US? London UK does just that. In toto, the London Councils (2018-2019) took in more than 700 million pounds and spent around 270 million running the service.
    • mcdonje 3y ago
      Yes, they're there to solve a problem not related to government revenue. Some cities use them as a revenue generator and they're examples of the effects of perverse incentives.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • gok 3y ago
    Do you think the point of vending machines is to equitably distribute soda?
    • mcdonje 3y ago
      No. How did you read my comment and think I might think that? This can't be a serious question.
      • MockObject 3y ago
        It seems like a reasonable inference from a shocking statement. > The point of parking meters and tickets is not to make money. According to whom? Is it equitable because all citizens have the same amount of money?
• rubymancer 3y ago
  Chicago resident here. The city making more from parking tickets is not exactly a selling point if you're the one paying them. Before the deal we had 20-year-old meters which were generally 25 cents or 50 cents per hour (quarters only). Lakefront parking was generally free outside downtown. After the deal, rates quadrupled or more and many more meters went up, including at the lakefront. Now there is always a worry about whether you're paid up enough to finish a picnic. At least we can pay with credit/debit cards through an app (progress!). The deal was a con from the beginning to help fill a budget shortfall and every resident who drives felt the effects, and will for the rest of their lives.
  • scythe 3y ago
    What seems to be an economic innovation is also often a political innovation. If Chicago was losing money on parking, they have the obvious remedy of raising the price. But they would face significant political blowback. So instead they "sell" the parking revenue to a "private" operator who then raises the price. The service provided by the metering company is not just operating the meters but also taking the blame for the cost of parking. This way the city government — i.e. the people in the city government — get to throw up their hands and point at their predecessors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem The incentive structure affecting the politicians is the root cause.
    • nobodyandproud 3y ago
      Perhaps the solution is that all government contracts must be renewed, when the executive leadership is re-elected. No contractual, perpetual hostage holding. It would require an act of Congress+, so I don’t see this ever happening.
    • pfannkuchen 3y ago
      Straight out of the Ticketmaster playbook.
    • HDThoreaun 3y ago
      I don't even think this would be a bad thing if negotiated properly without corruption. Honestly seems like a good solution to the political parking problem
• unethical_ban 3y ago
  Who gives a damn if the city "loses money" on parking? I had to delete a few versions of this comment because I got dizzy with anger. What is wrong with people thinking government should make net profit on fees from every individual service? Perhaps transit and parking charge nominal fees to ensure the users of said services aren't abusing a limited resource. But the cost of operating city services should ultimately come from taxes. A city should not have the profit expectations of a publicly traded company.
  • tgv 3y ago
    It is a tax, on parking.
  • WrongAssumption 3y ago
    Because if it loses money, I, a taxpayer that does not drive is paying for you to park your car. No thanks.
    • unethical_ban 3y ago
      I see. You don't think taxes should go to anything you don't directly use. A libertarian.
      • SirLamorak 3y ago
        I would argue that subsidizing driving is a net negative for the city. Cheaper parking means more cars. This means more traffic and more pollution. Normally subsidies funded by tax dollars are for net positives. A fire department existing in the city is a net benefit, even if I don't personally have a house fire.
        • unethical_ban 3y ago
          I get that perspective, though I am a bit more cynical about the ability of cities to transform. It's either cars or nothing, it's have decent parking availability downtown or let the city center die, in many places. Buses are shit, and light rail won't catch on until after the Collapse in most places.
• adolph 3y ago
  It is surprising that parking isn't handled like toll roads where they just send you a bill for the toll if you don't have a pass. You have my license plate, just bill me if I'm set up in your system and send me an invoice if I don't or if my account has a problem. What is it about parking that makes it harder than toll roads? Is it that parking is muni rather than govt-chartered enterprise?
  • jenny91 3y ago
    You can easily take a picture of the license plate of every car driving through your toll point. You can't easily take a picture of the license plate of every car parked on every single parking spot in a city.
    • adolph 3y ago
      You can easily take a picture of the license plate of every car driving into and out of a parking garage. Alerting street-side towing for unauthorized parking seems to be well-incentivized activity.