89 WLS - Chicago parking meters to charge $6.50 an hour

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Chicago parking meters to charge $6.50 an hour

6:21AM Thursday
December 27, 2012

We'll soon be number one. But it's not something to brag about.

Beginning Jan. 1, Chicago drivers will be shelling out more for downtown parking meters than any other city in North America.

The cost to park at a metered spot in the Loop will rise to $6.50 an hour from the current $5.75. That's more than double what people paid to park at meters in the Loop in 2008.

In the Central Business District, rates will go up 50 cents from $3.50 to $4. And in most neighborhoods, rates will rise 25 cents an hour.

The rates will begin their hike downtown and spread to the rest of Chicago by February.

The increase isn't a big surprise. Part of the $1.15 billion deal with Chicago Parking Meters LLC included five years of initial pay hikes. And beginning in 2014, meter increases citywide will be tied to the rate of inflation.

-- Sun-Times

CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago soon will have the most expensive downtown parking meters in the nation.

On New Year's Day, meters in the city's downtown Loop area will charge $6.50 an hour - an increase from the current rate of $5.75.

A report from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency says the rate change will make Chicago the city with the most expensive metered parking.

The company that operates the meters plans to have all machines set to new rates by the end of February. Drivers don't have to pay the new rates until the machine they're using has been reset.

Former Mayor Richard Daley got the City Council to approve the 75-year contract that gave the company control of the meters. In return, the city got a one-time payment of $1.1 billion.

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