Sun-Times Gives Readers The Boot (And Tickets)

Sun-Times Boot Cover

The cover story of today’s Chicago Sun-Times is a ward by ward breakdown of booting and ticketing in Chicago.

This info came out in a handout on the first day of city budget hearings from the Department of Revenue which was the first department to come under aldermanic scrutiny.

The newspaper did a decent job with graphics and maps to help visualize all this data.

Interesting, but far from surprising was that the 41st ward ranked first in booting. Not surprising as O’Hare Airport’s 24-7 booting patrol of airport is a money making machine for the city.

Can you guess which ward was #2? C’mon, it’s not hard.

That’s right, the 23rd where Midway Airport resides. Same 24-7 super aggressive booting patrol concept out there.

When it comes to parking tickets, here’s the ranking of the top 5 most ticketed wards:

Rank    Ward   Tickets

#1            42        192,758

#2             2          142,290

#3           44         106,209

#4            1            93,312

#5          32           87,480

Again, if you think about it, there’s a very good reason why it breaks down this way.

To put it simply, parking meters and congestion.

Essentially, the top five most ticketed wards are also the most vehicular congested and have the most meters in their wards.

In fact, when you compare the most ticketed wards, with the wards with the most meters, it’s nearly identical. The only exception is the 1st Ward which ranks 4th in ticket volume but 6th in meters.

Rank    Ward    Meters

#1            42         4206

#2             2           3894

#3           44          1768

#4           47          1505

#5           32          1419

#6            1            1141

Go ahead and read Fran Spielman’s take on the booting and parking data in Thursday’s Sun-Times, and check out the cool booting/ticketing maps too.

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8 Responses to “Sun-Times Gives Readers The Boot (And Tickets)”

  1. Ticketmaster says:

    It is really amazing, all these tickets and Management wants more. I’m just curious, how come the numbers are only thru August? Is it really that hard to include September?

  2. John Sebben says:

    Here’s another breakdown using the wards in both top 5s
    Ward 42: 45.83 tickets/meter
    Ward 2: 36.54
    Ward 44: 60.07
    Ward 1: 81.78
    Ward 32: 61.65

    Wards 2 & 42 look a lot safer now!

  3. Eric Spring says:

    More money for Richard “Revenue” Daley

  4. DoR Employee says:

    TM….you know as well as I do that management is all about the Money.

    Cochran needs to give up the knee pads and actually run us like an enforcement department.

    Lay off the bullshit kinder-gentler crap.

    They tell us via memo to enforce……but then someone tickets Cochrans Auntie? Oh no….can’t have that.

  5. TrafficCalmer says:

    This paper runs this same column every year; always front page, always intimating racism, and always as if there is some breaking news in the matter.

    This year they followed up with a voyeristic front page on property tax bills.

    About four times a year they simply print salaries, either of every public worker, of particular government units, or of annual comparisons of salary increases.

    What The Sun-Times considers an investigation at this point seems to be journalism students doing public records searches.

    The result, no matter how mundane, is presented as scandal. Usually, the result is hardly even informational.

    I like newspapers. It is a shame that they have been budgeted down to this.

  6. ldypea says:

    what you expect for .75 cents. Shortshanks wont give them a headline

  7. DoR Employee says:

    Ldypea……not true.

    The journalists in this city are pussies and afraid of Little dickie

  8. Dan says:

    I had a older work car I was not driving, and had up for sale. The car was parked off the street, behind my building, in our private lot.I pay extra rent for the spot every month. The plates and city sticker expired, and I recieved 2 tickets with a address that is across the street. The tickets have doubled. Can the city get away with this?

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