As if the infamous parking meter deal wasn’t bad enough for drivers, it’s about to get even worse.
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The City of Chicago owes Chicago Parking Meters a “true-up” payment of $20 million dollars next year. This amount will make up for revenue lost due to meters that are removed temporarily or permanently, and parking spots used by disabled drivers.
The 2008 deal under Mayor Daley gave the city over $1.1 billion but most of this was spent on short-term budget fixes, according to DNAinfo.
In 2013, Mayor Emanuel re-negotiated parts of the contract, including free parking on Sundays in some parts of the city. Those negotiations originally lowered “true-up” payments which at that time found payments to be around $1.65 million per quarter.
The city was also supposed to increase parking rates every year (as per the contract) but has failed to do so in the past five years.
Some of these “true-up” payments have already been made up by construction companies or filming productions that remove parking meters temporarily but it is not nearly enough to cover the whole cost.
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The 2018 “true-up” payment will now result in a 16.3% increase from last year.