Does your ass hurt?

Well, it should. Or at least it will soon.

That’s because the Chicago City Council passed Mayor Daley’s 2009 budget, and it’s chock full of measures that will wring more hard earned money out of driver’s already threadbare wallets.

It’s not like we haven’t been warning of this here. The fix was in from the very start.

Here’s a brief summary of how your sphincter was damaged.

*50 new red light cameras will be installed.

*The entire parking meter system (nearly 36,000 meters) will be privatized by year’s end. Expect increases at the parking meter after the beginning of the year.

*Residential permit parking guest passes will be raised from $10 to $16 for a book of 30 guest passes.

*The parking tax on drivers paying more than $12 to park $0.75, from $2.25 to $3.00.

And my very favorite…

*Lower the boot threshold from three unpaid parking tickets to a measly two parking tickets.

The only kinda, sorta decent news is a six week amnesty, (from Dec. 1 – February 14) on approx. 3.5 million parking tickets and red light camera tickets. And honestly, it’s not that great of an amnesty. It’s only a 25% discount on your current charges. Last time they had an amnesty, they cut outstanding balances in half. So this time around, it’s a pretty lame amnesty.

Everything listed above does not include an aggressive increase in parking ticket enforcement, hundreds of red light cameras, adding several thousand new metered parking spaces, etc., etc.

For whatever reason, it must be easy for the Mayor and the city council to pick on motorists and put the weight of this budget upon our backs.

Thanks Mayor Daley! Thanks City Council! We all have to wear a pair of Depends to soak up all the blood thanks to you.

Stay tuned to The Expired Meter as we will continue to advise  motorists how to drive smarter and help them fight their parking tickets.