Long a Driver’s Curse, Chicago Parking Gets Worse

Motorists here long ago learned how to park a fine line.

Miss the diagonal markings on your spot? That’s a $50 violation. More than 12 inches from the curb? $25, payable to the city. Two overdue tickets? You’re getting a boot.

But while every city has its vehicular regulations, Chicago under Mayor Richard M. Daley has earned the reputation of being ruthlessly demanding on motorists as a way to collect much-needed revenue, particularly when it comes to the city’s parking meters.

Now, the city is suffering what seems like a motorists’ meltdown.

“First, take a deep cleansing breath,” advises a premier blog addressing the problem, www.theexpiredmeter.com. “Inhale. Exhale. Everything is going to be fine.”

In an effort to plug a gaping budget deficit, Mr. Daley pushed a deal through the City Council a few months ago that privatized management of the parking meters for 75 years in exchange for a lump-sum payment of $1.15 billion.

In some areas, rates then rose fourfold. At most meters, there was no more free parking on holidays or Sundays, and some meters must be fed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Most vexing to drivers, however, is that thousands of newly installed credit-card and coin-taking parking meters simply do not work. They have been charging the wrong rates, failing to issue receipts (the only proof of payment) or not accepting money.

On Wednesday, so many of the downtown meters were out of order and spewing out error messages that the city did the unthinkable: it stopped writing parking tickets.

“I’ll take the responsibility,” Mr. Daley said at a news conference, angrily waving his hands in the air. “I’ll take it.”

Daryl Harris, 53, a janitor who works at a building in the central business district, has taken to carrying $10 in quarters in his ballooning pockets just to make sure he gets through a workday without a ticket on his silver Chevrolet.

“I’m paying anywhere from $50 to $60 a week for parking,” Mr. Harris said. “And I’ve never been reimbursed for the meter’s mistakes.”

Chicago Parking Meters LLC took over management of the city’s 36,000 meters in February after an overwhelming majority of city aldermen voted in favor of the deal. A spokeswoman for the company did not return a call seeking comment.

Alderman Manuel Flores, who represents many highly trafficked neighborhoods on the North Side, said he regretted his vote in favor of the contract. Mr. Flores said the company had been “unprepared to implement” such a large system.