Recently, Leonard Gilroy, Director of Government Reform for the Reason Foundation, a pro-free market think tank, and defender of Chicago’s parking meter privatization, had some strong, critical thoughts about the local media’s coverage of Mystery Of The Missing Meter Minutes.
Of course, I think he has no idea what he’s talking about.
So, I thought I’d write him an open letter to set him straight.
Dear Mr. Gilroy,
As a free market type guy, I really like the Reason Foundation. I try to read Reason Magazine whenever I can. In fact, I read your Out of Control Policy Blog, and I usually agree with your writings about, well, 100% of the time.
At least up until the last nine months or so.
I have been following your writings defending Chicago’s parking meter lease privatization deal on your blog. In general, you seem to be pro-privatization.
So am I.
But in the case of Chicago’s parking meter privatization, you are on the wrong side. This deal is a poor example of privatization and in fact, because of the lack of transparency, the dictatorial way it was forced on the citizens of Chicago and the horrible initial implementation by the lessee, has damaged and weakened the argument for privatization.
I apologize for not writing to straighten you out on this matter before, but to my mind, you need distance yourself from this poor example of privatization as quickly as possible.
But your recent piece, “Time is Relative, Except to Chicago Parking Meter Lease Critics,” just pushed me over the edge.
Let me tell you why, point by point.
Wait…stop. Faulty premise alert. They should all show the same time? This assumes that there’s some master clock somewhere that can send infallible, instantaneous information to thousands of electronic devices without fail.
The problem with your assertion above, is that there is a master clock somewhere. It’s called the atomic clock and is located in Boulder, Colorado. It is so accurate, it would perhaps, in a bad century, lose maybe a nanosecond of time.
In fact, the new meter company continues to state their meters sync to the atomic clock every night. But for some reason, even as of today, nearly every meter’s time is still seconds to nearly two minutes off in some cases.
In addition, every expert in time, networking and GPS we’ve interviewed says this error rate is completely unacceptable for a machine with it’s primary function, it’s sole purpose of existence is to provide accurate documentation of time.
What?! He’s not getting shorted two minutes—he gets the full time he paid for—he just didn’t bother to check his phone and match it up to the meter receipt. If he buys two hours of meter time, he gets two hours of meter time, plain and simple. But if he expects the parking meter to hold his hand on the basics of personal time management beyond that, he’s got a lot of hard lessons to learn in life.
Man, you’re really missing it here.
Have you ever used a parking meter before Mr. Gilroy? Or better yet, do you understand if you don’t feed your meter or come back to your meter in time, you are at risk for a parking ticket?
Because you see, that’s the real problem here. If the meter clock’s time is slow, literally 1-2 minutes behind what is accurate standard time, and a ticket writer shows up in those waning 1 or 2 minutes of the time on the receipt, using a handheld computer that actually can keep accurate time, you will get a ticket.
Understand now? The 1-2 minute gap between true time and whatever time in the past the meter is currently reading could mean a $50 ticket for a motorist.
I’m not sure what parking meters you park at. But in Chicago and every major city in the world, parking meters and enforcement go hand in hand. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Without the fear of enforcement, parking meters will not be fed and meter revenue goes down.
The City of Chicago needs the meters to keep accurate time as well. Because if motorists can prove they were ticketed improperly because of an inaccurate meter clock, tens, and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of desperately needed revenue slips from the hands of the city.
In this case, though, it’s unfortunate that the concessionaire is having to step in and eat some costs to appease people who can’t be bothered to check the clock and do some basic math. Call me crazy, but I don’t expect a clock on the wall to match my cell phone, I don’t expect my computer to match my cell phone, and I don’t expect a parking meter to match my cell phone. Chicagoans would do well to remember that the purpose of a parking meter is to count time, not to tell it.
Again, this totally escapes you. This company is in the business of selling time. It’s their product. Our cell phones and watches and clocks all can be wrong. But when we purchase a product that’s sole purpose is to accurately measure time, it HAS to be correct. And if it’s wrong, because of faulty equipment, it could cost their customer a $50 fine.
It’s like buying milk with an expiration date. Sure, you paid for your gallon of milk and got your gallon of milk. According to you, who cares if it’s two days past the expiration date. Well, if you don’t think it’s such a big deal, go ahead and you drink it then.
If it helps, I encourage you to read my “Gotcha” piece and my followup article on time as well.
I hope these two articles will explain things more explicitly so you can understand why this issue is a legitimate one.
Very truly yours,
The Parking Ticket Geek
Posted in 
Brava Mike.
Oy vey Geek with the time thing again!
I reiterate from an earlier post…
“It took me about a minute and a half to Google the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) AKA Bureau of Weights and Measures, to see if there were any standards on this whole parking meter timing thing.
http://tf.nist.gov/timefreq/general/pdf/2125.pdf
Here is what I found along with a bunch of other exciting nerd stuff:
A parking meter can legally “underregister”:
10 s per minute
5 minutes per half hour
7 minutes per hour
The nice thing is that the meter can “overregister” as much extra time as they are willing to allow and still be considered operational.”
Do you really believe the thousands of old mechanical tick-tock meters kept accurate time?
So the question begs…
Aside from the jacked up rates are we better off now than where we were last year?
I for one think we are.
Will they “fix” the discrepancy?
They already added two minutes to every purchase at the new pay boxes and frankly I’d rather have the extra two minutes than a box that’s accurate to the nanosecond.
So why, other than it’s as fun as playing peek-a-boo with a baby (good for about ten minutes), are we still beating this deceased equine?
Just a comment about format, not content.
Regardless of where one stands on this issue, is it really appropriate to post a facial photo? The gentleman’s image is irrelevant at best and, at worst, could lead to a chilling effect on free speech. As someone like you who writes under a nom de plume, may be I’m just being oversensitive.
the guy is a known public figure and has the same photo up on the reason.com website along with many other websites. It’s not like he’s being ‘outed’ in any way.
hell, there’s even a ‘click here for a high resolution photo’ link on the website. They *want* you to publish it.
Odds of PTG getting a response from this tool? Zero.
I’m taking this opportunity to officially CALL IT:
Look for the City to kick LAZ to the curb and (re)install their own meters.
Hey PP-
Yeah, it’s hard to totally disagree about the “deceased equine” point.
I have a few reasons for doing it.
1-I couldn’t let Mr. Gilroy’s tremendous lapses in logic go unanswered. I mean some of this stuff is 6th grade reasoning.
2-He’s desperately trying to support our city’s failed attempt of privatizing the meters and I feel the need to school him. His support for ALL privatization, no matter how bad is blinding him to the reality that our meter deal sucked.
3-I was busy, and a bit lazy Monday. I didn’t have anything ready to go or close to ready to post except for this. So, again, to be honest, laziness.
In regards to Facts’ comment, I see your point. It wasn’t my intention to “out” him. His photo is on the Reason website, and I’m only debating his assertions. I don’t feel my post is over the top in it’s critique. I didn’t call him profanities.
I felt I needed a graphic or photo for the piece. My letter is addressed to Mr. Gilroy, the man in the photo. It makes sense to me. Is there a stronger graphic solution? Most likely yes. Again, I was tired and lazy on Monday.
Thanks for the support Tom.
Geek wrote:
“I didn’t call him profanities.”
No…that’s MY job!
Geek,
I think we were all a little worn out on Monday from the huge Rio 2016 block party over the weekend!
Problem: The meters could be off by as much as two minutes
Source: The machines
Solution: City forces company to add two minutes
Question #1: Does the problem itself or the source have ANYTHING to do with the privatization? No, of course not. If the city still operated the system, the SAME EXACT THING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED.
Question #2: Why does the author of this article have to be so juvenile? Seriously, since when did journalism become about name calling and junior high “schooling”. He needed to be “schooled”? Is the PMG a rapper? Did he “diss” you?
Question #3: If your livelihood consists solely of getting people p*ssed about parking meters, are you really unbiased? I think this one answers itself.
Reader Guy posted:
“Question #3: If your livelihood consists solely of getting people p*ssed about parking meters, are you really unbiased? I think this one answers itself.”
It’s not his livelihood, it’s his hobby, however strange it may seem to some of us!
But I’m darn glad he works his tail off to keep this site active and alive and thriving, as it keeps things in the forefront, and gives us all plenty to think about. And a place to explore some new avenues to fight tickets, learn some things, and let off some steam.
And who said he was unbiased? This is his blog, he’s not a news reporter. Of course he’s biased against unfair parking tickets and other racket that keep this city going.
And believe me, we don’t need any help getting pissed about any of this stuff. That was taken care of decades ago by Daley.
Unbiased? I would hope not.
-John Adams
well…..said……Mr. adams……..
This IS a non-issue. We can speculate about fast clocks carried by meter readers in comparison to the time displayed on the box. But then don’t we also need to speculate about a clock carried by the reader which is wrong, but slow?
Here I suppose a conspiracy theorist would say inaccuracy is not error but design. I don’t bite on that kind of nonsense, and invite anyone to produce the meter-reader who says,”They gave us slow clocks so we could write more tickets”. Can you imagine sharing such a scheme with a meter reader? Probably 50 of them have been fired by now anyway and could say whatever they want.
When the meter debate reached the atomic clock it reached a level of aburdity. The reality is that the new box is about equal in advantages and disadvantages with the old meter.
The important questions are about the sale of assets in general and the rushed approval of this asset sale.
And what fool tries to time a meter down to the minute anyway? I sure wouldn’t have tried that with the old ones.
TrafficCalmer wrote:
“And what fool tries to time a meter down to the minute anyway? I sure wouldn’t have tried that with the old ones.”
The fool that got caught in the meeting that ran late.
The fool that went to Jewel and the lines were absurdly long, (as usual at Jewel)
The fool that was sitting in the dentist chair after being seen 45 minutes later than his appointment time, and had unforseen problems while being worked on, hence the whole thing took WAAAY longer than planned.
The fool who is juggling 2 kids and a baby in a stroller who is picking up a 4th child from an afterschool program that lets out late because of a teacher who’s clock isn’t synced with the atomic clock (or the paybox clock, for that matter)
The fool who is in court fighting a bogus ticket and gets detained because the court is taking much longer than expected.
The fool who parked in a pay box spot the night before and usually leaves for work before the meter times start, but today spent a few extra minutes on the toilet and couldn’t quite finish business as quick as he would have liked and got to his car a bit later than usual.
Do I really need to go on?
This whole idea of thinking that “everyone controls their life down to the minute and no unforseen events ever occur that would slow them down, so therefore if they get a ticket it’s their own fault no matter what” is a bunch of self-righteous hypocrytic poppycock.
You better never ever be late for anything ever again if that is how you think.
EVER.
EEEVVVVVEEEEERRRRRR!
Never Ever.
never.
ever…
never ever ever.
-John Adams
What about points #1 and #2?
Point #1: The clocks are wrong. THAT is the point. The article that Mr. Gilroy wrote defended the timing issue. The Parking Ticket Geek answered his article. I’m not sure what your are trying to say.
Point #2: Juvenile? Name calling? I find no where in the article where he called anyone a name. The tone of his article is sarcastic, but that is neither juvenile nor name-calling.
So, I saw no need to answer either of these 2 “non-points”.
-John Adams
Hey Mr. Adams!
Thanks for the support. Very appreciated.
I feel this piece is sarcastic and I don’t see where I called Mr. Gilroy any names. I try to avoid that behavior.
I did call his reasoning and logic into question.
The thing is, I have read Mr. Gilroy’s writing before and I am almost always in agreement with him.
It’s official!! I have developed DEF (Deceased Equine Flagellation) Syndrome and I blame all of the above posters. Anyone catch the name of the lawyer representing the parking aide suing for Eleventy Billion dollars?
I was wondering if those two commenters that are pro-Gilroy regarding this issue actually read this article, or even know what type of website this is.
PTG, keep up the great work. The fact that they mistake you for a journalist and not a blogger just means that you’re doing a great job.
Geek Dude, Way To Go. The more someone defends a lie, the bigger it becomes. you can quote me…
BTW I have an appointment next Thursday with an alderman we met at the banredcam rally to video some “interesting intersections”.
B
Hey Chad and Barnet!
Thanks for the kind words. I actually try to inject as much real journalism into the website as possible. I used to be a reporter when I was a younger person–a few lifetimes ago.
So, thanks for recognizing that. I very much appreciate it.
PLEASE keep on reading the website. I have maybe 6-7 VERY interesting news stories/investigations I’m working on that will make some people’s heads twist off and flames shoot out of their eyes.
Right Barnet?
Stay tuned!
Reader Guy Said:
Question #1: Does the problem itself or the source have ANYTHING to do with the privatization? No, of course not. If the city still operated the system, the SAME EXACT THING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED.
I believe you meant to say the exact same thing COULD have happened. You can’t guarantee the city would have chosen the same pay boxes. You can’t guarantee LAZ didn’t buy factory seconds. Had the city been involved there would could have even been some other graft involved in the procurement of the pay boxes… who knows? We’ll never know because this whole process was hijacked by Daley. So, yes, the problem DOES have something to do with privatization.
Another problem with the Guy From Reason’s position on the parking meters is that a tax supported and bailed out bank is the owner and financier of this deal. Reason Magazine is a libertarian publication that opposes government intrusion into the economy. I would think this would extend to tax supported corporations that are able to buy public property BECAUSE they have been given a subsidy by the Federal Government.
Leonard Gilroy’s position on the Parking Meter deal is short sighted and hypocritical. I suspect he did not do enough research before he wrote the article but had a knee JERK reaction to a program that involved the MAGIC WORD “Privatization”. Yeah I capitalized ” jerk” on purpose.