Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza listens to a question about city sticker sales on Wednesday.

City Clerk Susana Mendoza announced an early start to sales for Chicago’s annual city vehicle sticker Wednesday at City Hall.

“We are now open for business!” said Mendoza. “We are starting about two weeks before the traditional June 1 kickoff date.”

Mendoza said that 1.3 million city sticker renewal notices had already been mailed, the online sales website was live and ready to take orders and drivers who wanted to purchase their stickers in person could do so at any sales location.

However, this will be the last year for the long-lived tradition as Mendoza’s office will transition to a year-round model, which begins in June 2014.

“This will be the last year you will buy a city sticker on a June to June basis,” she said. “Two years into my term we are changing to a year-round system and I say good riddance.”City Clerk Susana Mendoza announced an early start to sales for Chicago’s annual city vehicle sticker Wednesday at City Hall.

Read more at: DNA Info Chicago.

Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza just released a new video explaining how year round city stickers will work in 2014.

City sticker sales will remain the same as previous years, but the Clerk’s office will use this year to educate drivers about the changes next year to hopefully make sales next year as painless as possible.

Bloomington, IL based State Farm Insurance is looking for drivers to help beta test their new RightLane smartphone app, which tracks a user’s driving behavior.

The insurance company is offering the first 5000 people to sign up and participate a $50 Visa gift card. There are a few caveats though. Participants will need an Android based smartphone to download the app and have to drive a minimum of 500 miles over a period of 25 days. Those days need not be consecutive but must take place within the four month test period.

Progressive Insurance already has a similar product called Snapshot, which is not a phone app but plugs into the diagnostic port of the car. Drivers supposedly get discounts for allowing Progressive to digitally look over their shoulder.

The main difference, according to GottaBeMobile is that Snapshot tracks the vehicle while RightLane will follow the driver.

But will motorists enjoy having their auto insurance company tracking their driving behavior? The jury is still out on that question.

Yeah, this aired a few weeks ago, but we’ve been too distracted to remember to post this video of a discussion on Mayor Emanuel’s proposed renegotiated meter lease deal on the always enlightening Chicago Tonight.

The producers invited the City of Chicago’s Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton, World Business Chicago Vice-Chair Michael Sacks, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) and some other doofus who writes for a local website called The Expired Meter to debate the proposal.

From what could have been a feature story in last month’s edition of Duh! Magazine, the Tribune assigned a reporter to interview drivers and bike riders about the recent boom in protected bike lanes and potential changes to the municipal code which would increase fines for dooring bikers.

Unsurprisingly, the drivers interviewed were frustrated with the behavior of some belligerent bikers, while bikers voiced anger at some overly aggressive drivers.

Here’s the full Tribune story.

The Western Avenue Overpass at Belmont & Clybourn. Photo credit Patty Wetli/DNA Info.

It’s been nearly four years since the demolition of the Western Avenue Overpassover Belmont Avenue in the Roscoe Village neighborhood was originally announced.

And it may be a few more years before the project becomes a reality says DNA Info Chicago.

But since then, the structure still remains and the project remains unfunded and still in the design phase with no concrete date to actually begin dismantling the roadway behemoth, according to DNA Info Chicago.

The overpass was originally constructed in 1962 to diminish traffic congestion around the legendary Riverview Amusement Park. Although the park closed down five years later in 1967. In the subsequent 50 years the overpass has become riddled with potholes and is in general disrepair.

Here’s DNA Info’s full report, “Western-Belmont Overpass Sticking Around Awhile.”

Graphic: NTSB

On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board announced its recommendation for states to lower the blood alcohol content (BAC) threshold for DUI from the current 0.08 to 0.05.

The NTSB says research shows that impairment can begin at a blood alcohol level as low as 0.05, although, the NTSB did not name or cite any specific research.

“The research clearly shows that drivers with a BAC above 0.05 are impaired and at a significantly greater risk of being involved in a crash where someone is killed or injured,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman on Tuesday.

The organization believes lower the BAC will reduce alcohol related crashes and deaths.

The NTSB says almost 10,000 people are killed in the U.S. every year from crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers and that over a 100 nations worldwide set their BAC level at 0.05.

But reducing the BAC in any state would severely limit drivers on how much they can imbibe. Depending on a person’s weight, this threshold would force driver to either not drink at all or severely cut their alcohol consumption to a drink or less.

The BAC was changed in the late ’90′s from 0.15 to 0.08.

NTSB recommendations have no legal weight as it would be up to each state’s legislature to decide whether to implement these type of changes.

The new deadline listed in a bid addendum dated May 10th, is now May 24th.

The City was confident its original deadline of April 16th, would give them ample time for a review of the bids, short list two potential vendors for pilot tests, perform a 30-day pilot, select a winning vendor and negotiate a contract by July 31st–when the current contract with Redflex Traffic Systems was supposed to expire.

A previous delay forced the City to admit it could not meet the July 31st deadline and extend the scandal plagued Redflex’s contract indefinitely until a new vendor could be selected and can transition to the new RLC system.

Based on the timeline the City’s speed camera contract has taken, Redflex may continue to run the nation’s largest and highly lucrative red light camera contract until the end of the year.

The City’s first speed cameras were supposed to be clicking away by the end of March. The original request for proposal (RFP) was issued last June, and while the city awarded the contract to American Traffic Solutions back in February, a contract still has not been finalized and announced.

These delays are certainly financially beneficial to Redflex which generates an estimated $800,000 a month from Chicago’s 384 red light cameras at 190 different intersections. The company brought in $10 million in revenue from their contract with Chicago in 2012, and over $100 million during the lifetime of the ten years it has been the vendor for the City’s RLC program.

Critics say, a report released Tuesday by the Chicago Inspector General’s Office backs up their claims and, according to one alderman, undermines the basis for the program’s existence.

“Our audit uncovered little evidence that the overarching program strategy, guidelines, or appropriate metrics are being used to ensure the [Red Light Camera] program is being executed to the best benefit of the City or the general public,” the report summarized.

“Specifically, we found a lack of basic record keeping and an alarming lack of analysis for an ongoing program that costs tens of millions of dollars a year and generates tens of millions more in revenue.”

The inspector general’s office started an audit of the city’s extensive red light camera program earlier this year in response to revelations of an internal investigation by current vendor Redflex Traffic Systems. That investigation, headed by former Inspector General David Hoffman, alleges employees for Redflex may have bribed the former city official overseeing the city’s RLC program.

Read more at DNA Info Chicago.

Ald. Brendan Reilly at City Hall. Photo credit: Ted Cox/DNA Info Chicago.

42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly is fighting back against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to revamp Chicago’s infamous parking meter lease deal and looking for viable alternatives on his own.

On Monday, he sent an email newsletter to constituents laying out his views on the matter.

Reilly has a lot to dislike about the Mayor’s plan as it includes increasing the hours meters must be fed in a majority of his ward three hours from the current 9 PM to midnight.

As part of the renegotiated deal with Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, Emanuel is asking for free Sunday parking in the neighborhoods allegedly in exchange for an additional hour of meter enforcement Monday through Saturday until 10 PM, and of course the extra three hours in River North.

“Over the past week, I have heard from hundreds of my constituents and hundreds more from across Chicago who object to the City Council lengthening meter hours in exchange for “free” Sunday parking in areas outside of the Central Business District and Near North side,” Reilly writes in his newsletter. “We all know nothing is truly “free” and this certainly applies to the Sunday parking proposal. Rest assured, families from every corner of the city will be paying for that “free” parking until 10 PM in their neighborhoods during the week. When they visit downtown for dinner, a movie, or concert they’ll pay to park until Midnight. No matter where you live, you’ll pay for that “free” parking one way or another.”

But Reilly is not just griping about the raw deal for his ward, he’s seeking alternative solutions to the meter deal mess. He’s been investigating the prospect of floating a municipal bond to buy the meters back from CPM–although he admits this is not without some downside.

“In the meantime, I have also been meeting with municipal bond experts to try and identify ways for the City of Chicago to potentially buy-back this valuable public asset,” continued Reilly via his newsletter. “Although we would have to potentially pay more for the asset than we originally leased it for – buying it back now could limit our exposure to future, costly litigation by CPM and allow the City to again control the asset decades before the Lease would be due to expire. Bond experts have informed me that this approach is within the art of the possible and I will continue to aggressively pursue this option.”

And although Reilly is at odds with the Mayor over the free Sunday parking and extended hours of enforcement, he makes it clear that he is highly supportive of what the Mayor and his team to renegotiate the closure and True Up revenue issues.

“I applaud the Mayor and his team for their excellent work to secure a settlement agreement that would limit the City of Chicago’s exposed liability on annual reimbursements to CPM for meters taken out of service by the City (for free handicapped parking, rush hour parking restrictions, etc.),” he writes. “The Mayor’s team compelled CPM to accept our econometrics in calculating annual “true-up” money owed to the Company. Without this great work, the City would have been obliged to pay CPM roughly $20 million per year over the remaining 71-year lease (slightly over $1 billion). This is a big victory for taxpayers.”

Despite this, Reilly is still a no vote on the proposal.

“I truly believe his team did an excellent job negotiating a settlement to the $1 billion in potential liability over the term of the lease and I would vote to approve that good work in a heartbeat,” Reilly says. “However, extending meter hours until 10 PM or Midnight for more than 29,000 parking spaces across the City, six days a week, would be a burden for many families across Chicago and could result in yet another windfall for CPM. I simply cannot support this proposal.”

Here’s Reilly’s full statement, “Alderman’s Update Regarding Controversial Parking Meter Proposal.”