May 15, 2009 8:27 pm US/Central
Transition To Parking Pay Boxes Not A Smooth One
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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The city has announced a sweeping transition to automatic pay boxes that will replace many parking meters across Chicago.
CBS
The city says "parking meter hell" is a thing of the past -- that broken meters have been fixed and that the ranks of repair crews and coin collectors have tripled.
It also says nearly all meters in the city will take credit cards by the end of the year.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine says the timing of the city's claims is curious.
Friday afternoon is traditionally the time the city's savviest spin doctors try to dump bad news -- and run.
They're hoping reporters won't catch them and that you're too busy jump-starting your weekend to notice.
Not this time.
Take a look at a dying breed: By the end of the year, most of the parking meters in the city of Chicago will be gone, replaced by pay boxes like this one, which are supposed to take coins and credit cards.
The news came in a Friday afternoon press release from the city, claiming it has "successfully addressed the majority of issues associated with the transition of the metered parking system" to a private operator.
Among the new credit card stations were these on Superior Street. We decided to check them out and put in a credit card. Nothing happened. There was another one across the street. In, out. Nothing. We tried two different cards at each of the machines. So much for their new reliability.
Alderman Joe Moore just happened to be right down the block. We showed him the broken boxes, and the city's press release.
Moore's been upset about the meter-lease deal since soon after the City Council approved it. He voted for it.
"It was a vote I've come to regret, and it was a mistake," he said. "And what we're trying to do now is go back, look at this, find out if there are ways that we can improve this contract (or) find out if there are ways perhaps we can get out from under this contract or renegotiate it."
A blogger known as Mike The Parking Meter Geek says: "The aldermen are hot because their people are hot."
Mike has been tracking the controversy on his website,
theexpiredticket.com.
"I still think people are avoiding parking meters," he said.
After dutifully reporting the broken pay boxes, Moore turned to the larger issue and what he plans to do about it.
"It is something that has created a lot of anger, understandably, so in my community and communities throughout the city of Chicago and the people are demanding that we look into this," he said.
We've heard them too, alderman.
But when we went after spokesmen for the city and its new parking partners, they did the "Friday afternoon dodge," refusing to make anyone available to answer questions.
Ultimately though, they'll have to face aldermen lined up like a firing squad at Finance Committee hearings. They were originally scheduled for Monday, but are now postponed while Moore and others gather more ammunition.
Rates on most meters citywide increased after the city outsourced meter management.
The city made a $1.15 billion deal with Chicago Parking Meters to outsource management for 75 years. LAZ Parking will operate the system for CPM, a consortium led by Morgan Stanley's infrastructure investment group.
The sale sparked outrage among many Chicagoans, and many meters were vandalized.
"We challenged CPM to do a better job of addressing consumer concerns and improving the system operability, and we're pleased to report that CPM has substantially improved their performance," city Revenue Director Bea Reyna-Hickey said in a statement.
Approximately 450 pay boxes have already been installed to date, replacing about 4,000 parking meters, the release said.
STNG Wire contributed to this report.
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