Parking Enforcement Resumes Today, Tuesday
As they say, all good things must come to an end.
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) announced Saturday afternoon that the parking enforcement stoppage due to the blizzard will end in the Central Business District on Monday. All enforcement, including parking meters will begin at 9 AM.
The rest of the city will see a resumption of parking enforcement starting Tuesday at 9 AM.
The Central Business District is essentially downtown and then some, but is defined by the boundaries of Oak Street on the north, Roosevelt Road on the south, Halsted Street on the west, with Lake Michigan as the eastern boundary.
Parking enforcement was suspended Tuesday as the Blizzard of 2011 was beginning to strike, giving Parking Enforcement Aides, SERCO personnel, Traffic Management Aides and boot crews nearly a full week off from issuing parking violations of any kind, including meter violations.
Although, without enforcement drivers have little incentive to feed meter pay boxes with recently raised rates, the city officially told drivers they still should pay for parking when utilizing on street metered spaces.
In the meantime, it seems from casual observation of cars at metered spaces today, many drivers are opting to not take the city’s advice and take advantage of this perhaps once in a lifetime opportunity to park for free without fear of $50 worth of reprisal.
Oh, I claimed advantage of the unenforced meters and then some. But indeed I did see a line at a pay box. People really need to pay attention to local news.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Audarshia Townsend, Parking Ticket Geek. Parking Ticket Geek said: This just in. Parking enforcement resumes Monday downtown, Tuesday everywhere else. Until then, FREE parking at meters! http://bit.ly/eQi1th [...]
Vet- That’s called stealing….its like when the cta bus driver is docked at station and someone walks in and doesn’t pay because driver is using restroom. And I know your going to say F*** the meter deal blah blah….in this world their is still a moral compass.
Optimus….this one week of the decade….
I don’t mind and neither does the city.
Yeah, really Optimus. We’re talking a few days out of 75 years.
I’ve seen some streets where people had to climb some pretty tall piles of plowed snow in order to try to pay for their parking.
I’m not sure, under these extreme weather circumstances, that not paying the meter for a day or two constitutes stealing. It is most probably a moral lapse of some sort, but perhaps closer to telling a white lie than a committing a felony.
Optimus: The real world is not all black and white. Mostly it is shades of gray so rigid definitions of concepts such as morality are best left for the classroom and Randy Cohen’s column. You know, one man’s thief is another man’s Robin Hood, its a matter of perspective. Nothing is absolute so judge not. Suspended enforcement is just another way to say meter holiday as far as I am concerned, and it is a fact that the money I saved on the fees (and then some as the wife had more time to browse) made its way into the cash registers of four local merchants and restauranteurs rather than in the coffers of a certain transnational bank we collectively bailed out with our tax dollars. I rather like this outcome, as I am a ‘support your local business’ type and CPM’s loss was the local business’ gain. Come tuesday I will dutifully swipe my damned AMEX at the pay box, but I won’t levy a penny of tribute to our meter overlords until the meter holiday ends. This is my moral compass and I’m sticking to it.
[...] we also reported today, the city announced today that parking enforcement will resume downtown on Monday and everywhere else on Tuesday. Posted in Winter Parking Tags: Ald. Joe [...]
Wow!
Well said OIF Vet.
So eloquently put. Good job.
I hope Optimus is just trolling and that nobody’s moral compass is really that screwed up.
Sadly where I was parked, all of the meters had the snow shoveled… They should have made a public announcement about this, can you imagine the restaurant and business boom in Downtown?
LOL
Stern…
Did you have a newspaper in the last 6 days?
Did you turn on the TV News in the last 6 days?
It Was Announced.
I couldn’t find a free metered space! : (
Someone friggin owes me!
“Moral Compass”? In Chicago politics, you’ve got to be kidding or over/under medicated!