Comments on: The World’s Loneliest Parking Meters

By: A. Castro

A. Castro — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:36:36 +0000

Ahh, how I “love” to see the pay box in the picture, warms my heart… I drove through that area during the nighttime once. It’s arguably the most interesting thing I’ve seen here for a while and it makes me smile just seeing it. We might’ve gotten f-ed over on the parking deal, good thing is we didn’t pay for these boxes (directly, at least)…

By: A.j.

A.j. — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:49:30 +0000

@Bob Foster: The old-style meters were only 2-hour jobs. With $.25 equating to 12 or so minutes. And as to why… Don’t ask me. Ask the city of Chicago. I’m just telling you what my coworkers experienced when the meters went in. I have no idea if they changed the old meters later for a $.25 an hour as my coworkers had stopped parking there and my information stream stopped.

Because it actually WAS cheaper to park in the Medical District Garages than it was to park on the completely empty city streets.

By: Drew

Drew — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:24:27 +0000

Check out the pay boxes at Logan and Jones by the Target if you want to see Lonely.

By: downtown doodoo brown

downtown doodoo brown — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:57:32 +0000

Costco is breaking ground on a new store at this location.

http://www.chicagojournal.com/Blogs/Near-Loop-Wire/08-03-2011/Near_West_Side_Costco_breaking_ground_this_month

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:20:17 +0000

Geek -

You should contact one of your news contacts about this. They would love this story…

By: The Parking Ticket Geek

The Parking Ticket Geek — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 13:34:07 +0000

It’s crazy right Greg?

WTF?

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 23:49:27 +0000

I read this earlier today and was in the area a couple of hours ago so I drove by. The absurdity of this is much more striking when you actually see the area in person. There really is nothing – I mean nothing – in the area. Some of the boxes have weeds at least 1/2 as tall as the boxes. It’s even difficult to get down some of the streets because several of them are closed, for some odd reason. And in the 10 minutes I was there, not only were there no cars parked, but I didn’t even see another vehicle drive by, and saw maybe 4 people in the entire area. This isn’t even an area that is used as a park – it’s just big, empty lots with debris.

Very strange…

By: Bob Foster

Bob Foster — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:14:23 +0000

AJ: If that were the case why didn’t the city simply make the old style meters 10 or 12 hour time limits? At .25 cents per hour it would cost you two bucks to park for eight hours or 3 bucks for the day. And please don’t give me that “they would have to carry a roll of quarters” nonsense because we all did that downtown before the pay boxes went in. This was another example of the inept and mind numbingly stupid management that lead to the privatization in the first place.

By: The PMZ: Chicago’s Parking Meter Zoo | theexpiredmeter.com

The PMZ: Chicago’s Parking Meter Zoo | theexpiredmeter.com — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:16:37 +0000

[...] week this site in a piece entitled “The World’s Loneliest Parking Meters,” reported on an area of the city with plenty of metered parking spaces, but no one there to [...]

By: A.j.

A.j. — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:56:52 +0000

Actually, there was a really good reason those meters were installed there in the first place. Before the meters went in, all of that land was free parking for the many employees of the Medical District. When the City wised up to the fact that all of these employees (who worked at UIC Hospital, Rush, and Cook County) and various others were parking there, free of charge, up went the meters.

It caused quite the outrage in the area, especially since the old-style (then) new meters were 2-hr parking only, and people needed those spaces for the 7.5-9hr work day. If the machines are more than 2-hr parking, there might actually be an upswing in parking, if just because people don’t have to go out there every two hours to add money.