Other Cities Learn From Chicago’s Meter Mistakes
My three year old stood at the top of the tall, inflatable slide.
He and a group of his buddies coalesced at the top, looking down at the bottom so far away, trying to screw up the courage to be the first to try it.
“You go first,” my son’s friend said.
That’s what little children say to each other when there’s something new to try or experience.
If the first kid survives that new challenge, the rest will follow. If something bad happens, the others adjust their behavior.
Chicago was the first city to take that leap of faith in privatizing it’s parking meter system.
By every account, except for Mayor Daley and his administration, Chicago made a lot of mistakes in leasing it’s 36,000 plus space parking meter system.
Now, according to a recent report by Bloomberg News, other city’s following Chicago’s lead, are using our city’s failings to insure they negotiate a more favorable meter lease deal for their municipality.
Bloomberg’s report focuses in on Los Angeles (which is still developing it’s plan) along with Pittsburgh (with a deal that seems to be on hold) and Indianapolis (which just approved it’s new meter lease deal).
In all three cases, each of these three cities rejected the worst ideas from Chicago’s privatization debacle.
In the meantime, Chicagoans look forward to a meter price increase on January 1st, and 73 more years of our wonderful meter lease deal.
Next time, let’s make someone else go first.
Here’s Bloomberg’s full story, “Morgan Stanley Chicago Parking Makes Cities Redo Deals.”
Nice writeup Geek! Elucidating, humorous and yet less filling. While it does suck to be the first sometimes, there are times when it works out. None of these other deals come anywhere close to 1.2 billion dollars.
The rejected Pittsburgh deal was for 452 million for 11 garages and 10,000 meters for 50 years.
Los Angeles is looking for 300 million for a 50 year deal on 10 garages while we got 600 million for a 99 year lease on 4.
The Indianapolis deal is the worst one in my opinion with only 20 million up front and a supposed revenue share after expenses. I wonder how high those expenses will get?
I’m not saying that our deal was a gazillion times better, just that these others aren’t all that much better either.
Will someone tell Winky that facts and logic have no place in the discussion regarding the meters. Whether its a policitally motivated criticism or an effort to be relevant, folks don’t care how much they lie, they just want to be heard.
It’s like the recent claim by our fine “experts” that morgan stanley (at least they got the company right) is trying to sell the system for $11 billion. It’s so ridiculous that you can’t even start to address it…yet now that its out there, people are citing it as a fact.
Those who criticise this deal would gladly pay you a dollar if you’d give them 2 dollars in 75 years. That’s twice as much as you gave me by golly, I’m making out like a champ! Those people are also ignorant, but they have a megaphone so they are going to be heard.
The sad part isn’t that they exist, its that so many people blindly choose to listen to them. If the Geek were honest and interested in the real story, he would dig for the truth instead of just repeating claims by kooks like Dr. Stone, Ald Wags and IG Hoffman. But you can’t write an article about how the City did a good job, so… 73 more years of uninformed journalism and complaining.
Get used to it Winky, a broken record never changes its tune.
Will The Reader offer up answers to these questions; why did the Chicago city council make approve such a long-term contract in what amounted to an ultra-short over night time frame? Why was such a rush necessary and in abject back room secrecy? Why was the proposal not put to a public referendum? Other than city-controlled “consultants” was there not other talent that could render motorists a more in-depth contract analysis? Why wasn’t the public allowed to review it or was this a Pelosi-bill which had to be passed first so you could understand it, like Obama-care?
Just a few short years later, the money is almost gone, and the city has lost parking as a source of revenue practically forever. How was that a good job?
Yeah, too bad the meter lease revenue couldn’t have been put into some sort of trust that prohibited it from being squandered all at once by any single entity.
This situation really has turned into Daley’s Waterloo. He doesn’t give two figs about the average Chicagoan . . . and his petulant attitude about not getting the Olympics pretty much said it all. The “balancing” of his last/final budget with looted meter funds is a clear “F*ck You!” to anyone who calls this city their home.
Oh, and when is that next parking meter rate increase gonna hit us?
The only people who can afford to retire in Chicago either are in a union or worked for state and city government…the rest of you are suckers.