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Report: meter lease limits n'hoods, planners, city
06/25/2009 3:21 PM
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The Active Transportation Alliance's new report, "Unrealized Assets: How leasing control of parking meters limits the future of active transport and innovative urban planning" claims the parking meter lease means neighborhoods and planners have "have lost control over one of their most powerful urban planning and revenue generating tools."
The parking meter leased passed city council last December 40-5. Loop and Near Loop aldermen like Robert Fioretti, Pat Dowell, Walter Burnett and Brendan Reilly all supported the deal.
ATA is a Chicago-based organization that promotes biking, walking and public transit as alternatives to using a car to get around, and has a goal of creating a region where 50 percent of all trips are made by biking, walking or public transit.
The group isn't against raising the cost of parking meters. In fact, valuing on-street parking appropriately, according to ATA, is a crucial tool for creating a safer and more environmentally friendly city:
But leasing the meters to Chicago Parking Meters LLC (CPM), which has indeed raised meter rates, wasn't the right answer, the report says.
While noting the city still has control over meter rates, locations and hours of operation, the "city would have to pay CPM the revenue that they would receive if a car were parked in the space for 24 hours a day in the central business district."
"The overarching impact is that the City has essentially given up control over pricing of the meters and placement of the meters," the report says. The result:
This means that every potential project on a street with meters, including bus rapid transit, bicycle lanes, sidewalk expansion, streetscaping, pedestrian bulb-outs, loading zones, rush hour parking control, mid-block crossing, and temporary open spaces are dictated, controlled and limited by parking meters. These restrictions severely limit innovative planning for bicyclists, pedestrian and transit users.
ATA's conclusion:
Download the new report here.






