Every year during Chicago’s annual city vehicle sticker season, each of the city’s 50 aldermen, host a one-day sale to give their constituents the convenience of purchasing their sticker close to home.

“Our City Vehicle Sticker sales in each ward office are always very popular,” says City Clerk Susana Mendoza. “I’m proud to partner with each Alderman to offer this convenient service, Like last year, this year I will be going to each ward sale to see our operations first-hand and hear ideas from Chicago drivers on how we can improve our sticker sales and services to constituents.”

Ward office sales kicked off successfully Wednesday with over 300 city stickers purchased at the 48th Ward office of Alderman Harry Osterman located at 5533 N. Broadway.

And according to City Clerk spokesperson Kristine Williams, these local ward sales are open to anyone–not just residents of that ward.

City vehicle stickers expired on June 30th, but drivers have until July 15th to purchase the 2012-2013 sticker without a $60 late fee or fear of a $200 ticket.

Anyone who owns a car registered in Chicago (or primarily houses or parks their car within the city limits even if it’s registered elsewhere) must purchase a city vehicle sticker for that vehicle.

This year, city stickers are $85 for most passenger vehicles and $135 for larger SUV type vehicles. Senior citizens are eligible to receive one sticker at $30, while annual Residential Zone Parking is an extra $25 per car. Daily Residential Parking Permits are $8 for 15 permits.

Besides local ward sales, Chicago drivers can purchase their city stickers online, at City Clerk offices and Department of Revenue locations or at more than 400 Currency Exchanges city wide.

Here’s the full list of city sticker ward sales which run all the way through July 11th this year.

So, when that bright orange parking ticket colored phone rang in the Geek’s underground bunker earlier in the week, we knew it’s someone important.

It was Mike Stephen, the affable host of Outside the Loop Radio.

Stephen was desperate. With NATO in town, all the potential cool, interesting and important guests he usually has on the show had fled town.

So he had to resort to booking D-list guests. After going through the entire list, there was just one more name listed at the bottom.

Yup. You guessed it. That idiotic Parking Ticket Geek.

The Geek joins Stephen Thursday morning on Outside the Loop Radio at 10 AM on WLUW Radio 88.7 FM to chat about how crappy Chicago’s parking meter lease deal was, is, will continue to be.

Tune in or stream the show here.

New York City seems to be taking tentative steps toward embracing privatizing their parking meter system, according to the Wall Street Journal.

After putting the initial idea on hold for several months, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has restarted the process exploring the idea of a private firm operating the city’s 39,000 parking meters.

The Bloomberg administration believes, and rightly so, that the Big Apple lags behind in parking technologies and services compared to other major American cities. They feel the right private firm could embrace cutting edge parking related technologies like pay by cell phone, in pavement sensors and dynamic pricing, to name a few.

But, the city is very conscious about not repeating the many, many, many mistakes Chicago made when it privatized it’s parking meter system back in 2008.

New York’s parking meters raked in about $149 million in 2011.

To put that in perspective, Chicago grossed around $24 million in revenue in 2007, the year before the meter deal was signed. In 2010, Chicago Parking Meters showed revenue of close to $80 million.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s full report, “City Explores Private Deal For Meters.”

Call it doggie distracted driving.

That’s essentially what Illinois State Senator Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago) called it when motorists allow their pets to ride in their laps while driving.

Sandoval sponsored an amendment to the Illinois Vehicle Code which would prohibit motorists from such behavior and fine them $25 if caught in the act. And while Illinois would have joined Hawaii in outlawing driving with Fido on your lap, the measure got voted down 21-27 last Thursday.

“I was disappointed, but not shocked as it moved very quickly so we didn’t have much time to rally support,” explained Chicago resident Melissa Ramirez who had lobbied Sandoval to sponsor the legislation.

It seems, according to AAA Motor Club, dogs make driving dangerous.

AAA claims 30,000 accidents a year can be attributed to unrestrained dogs in the car and strongly encourages pet owning drivers to utilize some sort of restraint when driving with their dog.

In addition, a recent AAA study reports that 84% of respondents have driven with a pet in the car, with 65% admitting to participating in pet induced distracted behavior like petting their dog (54%) and 17% of the drivers surveyed drove with their dog sitting on their lap.

Only 16% of respondents claimed to have used a restraint on their dog while driving, while other studies claim it’s much lower and perhaps closer to 5%.

“Unrestrained dogs are not only a danger to themselves, but they are even more dangerous to others in the car, especially young children,” says Ramirez. “A 10 pound dog has the force of 80 pounds, when moving at only 40 mph. In addition, unrestrained dogs have been cited as a top 3 reason for distracted drivers.”

Ramirez is passionate on the subject, as she has had first hand experience with the danger of driving with an unrestrained canine in the car. Back in 2008, her husband was involved in a car accident which resulted in her dog Max becoming paralyzed.

A year later, Ramirez started Zerimax a company which manufactures and sells restraints for dogs riding in motor vehicles.

“It started with an accident, where my dog was paralyzed, which evolved into a product,” says Ramirez. “The idea for Doggie Seatbelt, a specially developed restraint for small dogs, is what spawned the company.”

Despite the loss in the Senate, Ramirez remains undeterred and plans to push for the law again.

“We will be going in for round two next year,” says Ramirez. “I see it as an extension of the seat belt laws & distracted driver laws, it starts to take into account our dogs. About half of the population has pets, and they travel more an more with us, so it’s time that the laws reflect it.”

Ramirez has plans to spread the word through safety clinics she’ll be holding this summer.

“In addition, I will be running Dog Seatbelt Safety Clinics all summer long at Chicago’s street festivals, bringing awareness, education, and tips,” she says. “This will allow me to touch a lot of people in various neighborhoods in Chicago and ideally get them to reach out to their legislators.”

Photograph courtesy and copyright AAA.

Not by increasing the 25,000 parking spaces it controls at lots and garages adjacent to the airport, but through technological improvements to allow drivers to use their cell phone to locate and pay for parking.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the city is seeking bids from companies that have technology which will allow drivers to locate open parking spaces within garages or lots and even pay for their parking using smart phone applications.

Drivers with pre-paid parking would not have to wait at long lines to pay for parking before exiting. The city believes they can eventually decrease the number of manned pay booths at each parking lot or garage location.

The story says 3.4 million cars park at O’Hare annually, or an average of 20,000 vehicles a day.

But the bid description also has a mildly sinister request for potential bidders.

The winning bidder must be able to employ license plate recognition technology at the entrance and exit to parking facilities.

The city wants this technology to supposedly prevent fraud and help locate lost vehicles. But Chicago wants the license plate recognition software to be used to alert the officials when a parking ticket scofflaw’s vehicle is on the premises so city boot crews can slap a Denver boot on the vehicle. Of course, once immobilized the car won’t be going anywhere, as the boot won’t be released until all unpaid parking tickets and red light camera tickets are paid up or a payment plan is worked out.

Here’s the Sun-Times full story, “O’Hare upgrade would let you find and pay for parking with your phone.”

WGN Radio's John Williams

Who would have thought we’d still be talking about the Chicago parking meter lease deal nearly four years after the fact.

The Parking Ticket Geek joins John Williams on WGN Radio 720 AM Thursday afternoon at 2 PM to discuss how the meter lease deal continues to haunt the city.

Tune in 720 AM or stream WGN radio here.

Second Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti proposed consolidating nine small residential permit parking zones into four big ones explains the Chicago Tribune.

The idea was hatched and the ordinance passed in the City Council. So far, so good.

But issues began when some 2nd Ward residents decided to get their 2012-2013 city stickers in late April when the City Clerk’s office made them available earlier than in past years.

The problem was that signs reflecting the new and improved RPP zone numbers had not been erected in the ward yet–the ones with the old numbers were still up. Drivers with the new city stickers sporting the new RPP numbers on their windshields started seeing bright orange envelopes underneath their windshield wipers.

Of course, according to the story, some 2nd Ward residents are not very happy getting parking tickets and have been complaining.

Both the 2nd Ward office and the City Clerk’s office say they communicated this potential issue with Department of Finance Street Operations which handles parking enforcement.

While the 2nd Ward office says only a handful of tickets were issued, this story in the Tribune should probably stop these tickets being written completely.

However, if you live in the 2nd Ward and get one of these improper tickets, reach out to Alderman Fioretti’s office and/or the City Clerk’s office. In cases like these, both places should be able to help drivers get the ticket vacated or get you a letter to successfully contest it.

Here’s the Chicago Tribune’s full story, “Problem Solver: Parking zone mismatch makes for sticky situation.”

While Chicago area gas prices are still significantly higher than last year, local gas prices dropped nearly a quarter a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline in April, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report.

“Prices are starting to stabilize a little from the price increases we saw due to the switch over to the summer blend of gasoline,” said Beth Mosher, director of public affairs for AAA Chicago.

It was the end of March when Chicago gas prices reached a record high price of $4.68 per gallon in the city proper and $4.50 per gallon for the Chicago metro area according to AAA.

Since posting those unprecedented high prices, fuel costs at the beginning of May are down 31 cents to $4.37 a gallon for the city and are 34 cents lower in the greater metro area dropping to $4.18 per gallon.

Fuel price tracking website,ChicagoGasPrices.com shows a similar decline from an all-time record of $4.56 a gallon over a month ago to a current price of $4.22 per gallon–down 34 cents per gallon.

“The worst is certainly behind Chicago drivers,” said Patrick DeHaan, Senior Petroleum Analyst for GasBuddy.com. “The wholesale price of gas has taken a hit the last few weeks. Now that the switchover (to the cleaner burning summer blend) is over, supply will begin to build and prices will stabilize.”

While not the highest gas prices in the nation, GasBuddy.com still ranks Chicago in the top 5 cities for highest gas prices.

Told ya so.

When the Chicago parking meter lease deal was being jammed through the Chicago City Council in just over 36 hours in December, 2008 The Expired Meter warned how bad the deal was.

Certain provisions within the nearly one inch thick parking meter lease contract leaped out at people who actually read the document–provisions that could and would spell trouble down the road.

Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd)  knew about this stuff too. As one of the few (if not only), city council members who actually read the lease agreement and took the time to understand it, he foresaw what would happen.

“This is right on par with what we knew would happen,” said Waguespack initially in an interview this past Friday. “Any alderman (who voted for the meter lease deal) that still says they didn’t know that this was going to happen is ignoring reality.”

But when pressed, even Ald. Waguespack admits the meter lease deal is worse than even he predicted.

“Yes,” he simply said when asked if the deal has exceeded even his expectations of failure.

City Will Give Back Entire $1.16 Billion By Lease End

With the Sun-Times report that Chicago Parking Meters, LLC has billed Chicago $14 million for contractually obligated revenue just for 2011, bad has skipped worse and jumped directly to financial nightmare.

Because if you do the calculations based on this figure, by the end of the 75 year lease term, Chicago looks to pay CPM more than the original $1.16 billion lump sum payment it received in 2008 for the rights to operate Chicago’s metered parking system.

In other words, over the length of the contract, CPM will get their entire initial investment of $1.16 billion back through givebacks  while reaping many billions of dollars in profits from Chicago drivers who pay the highest meter rates in the entire nation.

It’s simple math really.

Even if you take the 2011 figure of $14 million and simply multiply it by 73 years you get just over$1 billion. That’s billion with a B.

While this compensation revenue billed by CPM was under $6000 for 2009 and $2.1 million for 2010, realize that as meter rates go up over time, the bill for closures will rise as well.

$14 million in 2011 will inevitably grow each year and certainly be a larger number by 2084 when the meter lease deal mercifully ends.

Closures or True-Up Revenue is the main problem. True-Up Revenue is essentially any time a street with metered parking is closed or metered parking spots were unusable or metered spots were removed, the city would have to pay.

This could be for an assortment of things including street repair, utility work, private construction or even street festivals. Any time this would happen, the new lease holder, Chicago Parking Meters, LLC could bill the city for the entire day of lost revenue at those unusable metered parking spots.

It didn’t matter if the metered spots, under normal use were occupied with cars only a fraction of the day, if a spot was closed the city had to pay for 100% of the revenue for that day for as long as the parking spot was closed.

In addition, even though it looks like free parking for the majority of disabled drivers will go away soon via a bill pending in the Illinois State Senate, bills for this provision in the contract won’t go away completely either.

In other words, Chicago will end up repaying CPM the entire $1.16 billion and more it got for signing away the city’s meters for 75 years–a net loss for the city.

Alderman, Contract, Facts: Chicago Will Have To Pay Meter Company Bill

Despite Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s laughable pronouncement he won’t pay these bills, don’t believe for a second that CPM won’t get their moola.

CPM’s documentation of closures using photographs, copies of dated no parking signs, and even the city’s public database of closures will prevail in the end.

“The problem is we signed off on the document that outlined how True-Up Revenue was calculated,” says an exasperated Waguespack. “The city signed the contract and unless he (Mayor Emanuel) breaks the contract and says he’s not going to do it,  it will go to arbitration. No arbitrator is going to say the city is right in this case–there’s no way.”

Waguespack says the city has been intimately involved with the process documenting True-Up revenue from the very beginning.

“If you looked how involved the Department of Revenue has been in this process–there’s no way we can’t pay,” Waguespack explains. “It’s the Department of Revenue that calculates the True-Up costs.”

But it even goes deeper than this Waguespack says.

According to Waguespack, the same city attorneys who signed off on the meter lease deal contract four years ago are still consulting Mayor Emanuel on the contract today.

“It’s the same people who reviewed the contract for the city in the first place,” says Waguespack. “Did they suddenly have an epiphany? I don’t think he (Emanuel) realized what kind of nightmare this was.”

Even though Chicago will be paying out the nose every year for the privilege of having a company reap billions of dollars off the backs of motorists, drivers will still have the honor of paying the nation’s highest parking meter rates and bask warmly in the realization that Mayor Daley screwed them over for 75 years.

That’s what the Illinois Department of Transportation and local motorcycle rider groups are asking car drivers to do. As the weather gets warmer and more motorcycles are on the road, drivers of four wheeled vehicles need to be more attentive of the two wheeled types.

The state launched their “Start Seeing Motorcycles” campaign this week in conjunction with Motorcycle Awareness Month in attempt to promote the idea of improving traffic safety for both motorcycles and cars.

“As the weather improves and riding increases in popularity, more motorcyclists are hitting the roads,” said Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann L. Schneider. “With that in mind, passenger cars and trucks need to be attentive and make sure they ‘share the road.’ A motorcycle is one of the smallest vehicles on our roads therefore every driver needs to proactively look for them before changing lanes or merging with traffic.”

IDOT suggests car drivers give motorcyclists a bit more space when driving and never tailgate.

But the agency also suggests motorcycle riders need to be extremely diligent as well by avoiding driving when weather conditions are wet and not to weave in and out of traffic at high speeds.

According to Carleen Grant, a local motorcycle rider and spokesperson for the pro-rider group ABATE, 144 motorcycle riders were killed in accidents last year in Illinois or 16% of all traffic fatalities. In fact, according to research from the U.S. DOT, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration motorcyclists are about 39 times more likely than passengers in cars to die in a traffic crash.