May 28, 2009 5:29 pm US/Central
Does Chicago Have A Way Out Of Parking Meter Deal?
Ald. Joe Moore Says Voting For Privatization Worst Decision He's Made In Office
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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It has been a rough transition in Chicago to parking pay boxes like this one, to replace traditional parking meters.
CBS
One day after Chicago's massive pay station malfunction parking seemed to be back on track, but a look back to
Wednesday's out of order signs and parkers scribbling notes to try and avoid tickets still has frustration meters running high.
"This was probably the worst vote I cast in 18 years as an alderman," said 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore.
Ald. Moore says at the time, receiving
$1.15 billion from a private firm called Chicago Parking Meters to service the city's 36,000 parking spots for 75 years seemed like a good idea. But a look back at a series of glitches and malfunctions has him thinking the agreement should be prematurely expired.
"This calls into question whether the vendor has breached their contract and giving the city the opportunity to renegotiate this contract," Moore said.
"We just filled our budget $40 million -- you can't go back to taxpayers for $40 million," Mayor Richard M. Daley argued.
Daley dismissed any idea of re-examining the contract, but his law office did confirm there are broad generalities in the agreement that would give the city an exit strategy.
The mayor call's Wednesday's parking box meltdown a "computer glitch", but a spokesperson for the firm says they still don't know just what went wrong. All sorts of possibilities, from electrical snafus to paper malfunctions, are currently being investigated.
Also in this modern age some conspiracy theorists are saying it may have been the work of high-tech sabotage.
Mike, Chicago's self-proclaimed "Parking Ticket Geek" and blogger, said traffic has spiked at his Web site,
TheExpiredMeter.com, with stories of pay box frustration and just what's behind it.
"A lot of people are speculating was it a hacker attack, was it vandalism attack, was it just a lightning storm downtown, or was it just a software glitch," Mike said. "They're very, very angry and the entire transition process has been a bad one."
Conspiracy theory or not, 24 hours later the pay station snafu remains a mystery. Also, the city issued a moratorium on pay box parking tickets Wednesday, but CBS 2 received no response from the Department of Revenue about how much money may have been lost or how many incorrect tickets may have been issued because of that decision.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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