City of Chicago Parking Meter Operations

After you park your vehicle, walk over to the green box that sits on the pole and enter your debit card. Punch the appropriate buttons and you should be able to avoid a citation.

What can you even say about these people? They’re horrible and that’s all that can be said.

The meter system in the city of Chicago is by far the best example of why we should not allow privitization of public properties. I hope everyone knows that all the money generated from the meters themselves go to the company and NOT the city of Chicago. It’s unfair and one of the main reasons that Chicago is losing residents. Ef them and Ef the city/​mayor that would allow it.

The devils work; a city sticker, a plate sticker, and parking meters. My love for the city is almost at it’s wits end. It’s taxation without representation if it ever did exist today. When did parking your car in public areas become taxable. Soon they will have monthly payment plans just like cell phones for parking.

From a Chicago native; Another example of how corrupt and bold Daley has been. As long as no one votes him and his crook friends out, and no one worthy runs against him, he will keep comming up with more ways to f*ck us again.

On July 17, I noticed that ALL the parking meters on Belmont, near Central on the northwest side, had been removed and replaced with one payment box per block. Had meters been broken so many times that someone thought boxes would solve that problem? NOBODY IS PARKING ON BELMONT! There are plenty of free parking in store or mall lots and offstreet parking in the neighborhood. Will Daley be the first mayor kicked out of office because of parking lots?

Just want to respond to a few reviews I read. For your parking tickets MAKE SURE you look at the ticket and the info on the face is correct, if not contest based on incorrect info. MAKE SURE to double check address and spelling for street and description of ordinance. Look up the ordinance and MAKE SURE you violated it as it is described. If on a meter the meter number which is on the back should be listed on it — if not contest. Take photo of location if does not match and send in photo with your contestment. The number on the back of meter is also important if you paid the meter and it did not register the time correctly you have to id the meter. News checked meters by feeding quarters and found most meters are incorrectly timed short! I’ve beat the city for about eleven tickets because they lie on their tickets. They were so humiliated by me that when I was contesting my last ticket the hearing officer told me «I see you have beaten a bunch of tickets, you won’t win this one today!» I was found guilty before the hearing started and evidence was presented! I just walked out and if I had the time I would have taken it to cook county and sued. Don’t think for a second they are fair. I even got a ticket parked in my driveway and they wrote «parked on sidewalk» even though the ordinance does not apply.

CLOSED, right? I mean, those dudes bought em all.
but FIVE STARS for the 1000s of mysterious parking meters between 16^th and roosevelt from damen to ashland. It is the most phenomenally visible corruption I’ve seen in a fortnight. There is nothing there, but parking meters. No businesses, no parked cars… just meters. Actually, theres two lil two-​three flats on one block… they must have complained cause their spots are meterless.
Where’s Walter Jacobson and his buddy Geraldo when we need them? Zero stars for those bozos!

I just got a ticket for parking at a broken meter. The meter was jammed with quarters! I called before parking to report the meter. They told me that I could park there. I left a sign on the meter saying it was broken. And I STILL got a ticket! The POLICE blow! Where is the justice? They just STEAL money!

Every time I park and have to pay a meter, it’s like contributing to a swearing jar, in which I never get to cash in on the money. How much time does $ 0.25 get me? What?! F*CK!, in goes the quarter, what, only 15 minutes, SH*T, more quarters, Mother Father Chinese Dentist, several more quarters.
And you can forget about finding a meter that still has some time on it. If I paid that much money, I’m staying in that spot until the time runs up, I don’t care if I’m done with my business. I’ll sit in my car and take a nap if that’s what it takes.
Long gone are the days of parking meters expiring after 6, on Sundays and holidays. These will now be the anecdotes I tell my future grandchildren, how back in the day «Nana only had to pay a quarter for an hour way back when».

BOLLOCKS!
I received my first parking ticket today. I am screaming total BS!
First off. who the hell carries the amount of quarters necessary to park for an hour, let alone 2 hours? We arrived at approximately 4:10pm and placed 6 quarters. At 425pm, we put in 2 more quarters. it would not register the 2^nd quarter and remained at 1 hour 45 minutes. At 6:05pm, we received a $ 50 ticket! We never received the full 1 hour 45 minutes! Our ticket was gifted by the City of Chicago, not by the company that bought the meters. It was raining sleet and still on a Sunday, Daley had his goons out in full force. I am sure and positive that the city is now making double bank off of the sale because they are allowed to ticket these expired meters knowing full well that each parking meter could not possibly fit the amount of quarters necessary from 8am-​9pm 7 days a week. Broken meter? It’s your word against theirs. Screw you and your stupid Olympics!

What a hateful, awful, wretched thing a parking meter in Chicago can be. I’m sorry. A dollar an hour (that has to be paid in quarters because dimes and nickels are inferior? I don’t know) to park on a city street that is not salted, plowed, or protected. And then to have to feed that thing every two hours with more quarters.
There are certain people I think will have to answer to the universe for what they’ve done. The people in charge of these meters in this city must certainly be at the front of this line. They have to be.

It’s always awesome when you put two quarters in the meter and it doesn’t register. Then you put a sign on the meter letting the meter maids know that it is broken and they still give you a $ 50 dollar ticket. Bogus!

36,000 parking meters generated $ 23 million in 2007 for the City of Chicago, now we are «under» parking privatization and higher meter rates…
Da’ Mayor likes trading the right to all city property tax revenues for the next 50 years in exchange for enough money up front to get us through the next five years in splendid style? Once the five years are up… oh well who cares. Apparently this must be his thinking.
How much more can we borrow against our future in this city and pretend along with the Daley administration that it’s not ‘debt’ ?
Chicago’s political habits force it’s residents into the desire to «escape Chicago». I wonder how many promissory notes Richie has in his back pocket.
Much like the actual duration one is parked illegally is not a defense, the Mayor and his Aldermen posse’s «durations» in office (lack of experiential wisdom) are also not a defense for such absuridities on how the city handles it’s parking revenue distributions or the proposal to collect today against tomorrow’s residents/​neighborhoods fund allocations for improvements like walkway, bike and transit, not to mention congestion planning.
This city is not strategically innovative, it’s just full of old cossets who want large revenue numbers on their epitaphs.