Some Friendly Advice For Chicago Parking Meters, LLC

Hey there CPM!

Pull up your bar stool, and let me buy you a beer. You look like you really need a drink.

Look, I know you're new in town.

Perhaps you don't now how things work here in Chicago.

So far, you've made a lot of mistakes, stepped on a few toes, and generally, if you don't mind me saying, pissed off nearly everyone around these parts.

In fact, everyone around here pretty much hates you and/or thinks you're a clown.

So sit down, and let me give you some friendly advice on how to make amends, be a better neighbor and get back on the right track here in Chicago.

Get Your Equipment To Work Correctly

C'mon man! If you're gonna call yourself Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, and you install state of the art computerized Pay & Display pay boxes, they need to work.

I know single head traditional parking meters are so passe', so let's say...2008. But at least they worked when you dropped in a quarter.

Yesterday, was a major fiasco. A real screwup.

But you've been having problems with these units all along, with reports of Pay & Display machines not accepting credit card payments at many locations.

Get them to work!!!

You're probably spending millions of dollars to install these machines. Get the manufacturer that sold you these machines back here and MAKE THEM WORK!

Communicate Better

Hiring Avis Lavelle is a good start. She's personable, intelligent and will be a great spokesperson for your company--if she can last that is.

But your company's ability to communicate and interact with the public via the media has been horrendous from day one. Calls to your spokespeople, management and corporate officers consistently go unreturned. Your people ignore the media and therefore the public. That is unless you're brought before a City Council hearing or frog marched to a press conference, hat in hand, to apologize for your many, many missteps.

Even yesterday, when you knew there were major issues, instead of getting in front of the problem, and announcing to the public via the news media, there was a problem, you let the media discover the problem and report on it. It made you look really bad.

If you had announced there was a problem, explained what drivers should do, and asked the city not to issue tickets until your techs fixed the machines, you would have gained our respect.

If you were smart, you would have told everyone that downtown parking was FREE today because of the sheer number of inoperable meters and scope of the problem, you would have been a hero.

Talk to us. Talk to Chicago. We're nice people.

But when you run and hide like cowards, we get angry.

Adopt The Park Magic In-Car Meter

This is a no-brainer.

If you don't know already, Park Magic, is an in-car meter system, much like the I-Pass system for our tollways, that allows drivers a great deal of flexibility in paying their meters.

Park Magic allows drivers to use their cell phones to pay for metered parking, instead of using quarters at regular single head meters or paying for parking a block away at a Pay & Display unit.

If you're into your third glass of wine at dinner, and running late getting back to your vehicle, just call the Park Magic automated service line and add another 30 minutes of time to your meter. You don't even have to leave your table.

I also know that CPM would pay less transaction costs to process a Park Magic payment, than you would pay to your credit card processor, when drivers use their credit and debit cards at Pay & Display units. So it actually would put more money in your pocket.

The convenience of a Park Magic as a payment method, would be just one more incentive for Chicago drivers to park at your metered spaces.

Considering all the problems you've been having with broken conventional meters and now with Pay & Display units, why wouldn't you want to adopt Park Magic?

Lower Meter Rates

I don't know if you know this, but drivers are boycotting your parking meters.

It's pretty easy to see. Where there used to be streets filled with parked cars at meters, in some areas, parking ghost towns have popped up. Tumbleweeds blow down the street, unimpeded for blocks before running into an actual parked vehicle.

You need to lower parking meter rates.

Seriously.

Not everywhere. But in many places.

Let me explain.

$1.00 per hour parking rates work great in Lakeview. Increased rates in this popular shopping and nightlife area have reduced parking congestion, made parking easier, and without drastically reducing the number of cars utilizing metered spots. Turnover has improved. Business owners are happy.

However, that same $1.00 per hour rate in other areas, is chasing drivers and prospective customers for local businesses, from driving and parking in neighborhoods that are less popular than Lincoln Park, Lakeview and the Gold Coast.

Let's put it this way. Apartments in Lakeview command higher rents than South Shore, right?

So why are meter rates the same in both places?

It's simple economics.

Lower rates in less trafficked areas and you'll increase revenue.

Sound counter-intuitive? Not if you consider that currently, no one is parking at blocks and blocks of meters in some neighborhoods. Lower the rates to 50 cents an hour or even 25 cents an hour in some areas and many drivers will start parking there again.

25 cents an hour is greater than 0 cents per hour.

I learned this in 2nd grade. How can this simple mathematical axiom escape the financial geniuses at Morgan Stanley?

If your company voluntarily lowered rates in some places, not only would you increase revenue, but you would win over many, many motorists who right now, truly hate your guts.

Refunds

Too many of your parking meters take our quarters, but don't register any time in return.

And even when we call your customer service hotline to complain and report the problem, we're told "we don't give refunds."

Start giving refunds.

Allow your customer service operators the ability to send out CPM debit cards with, let's say a whole $1.00 of value on them. Of course, they only work in your Pay & Display machines and no where else, but it would assuage all the crazed, pissed off motorists.

It's like at when you're having a nice dinner one night, and you have to wait too long for your entree to come out from the kitchen. Mention it to the manager, and all of a sudden a round of free drinks hits the table.

Before, you would probably not return to this joint for another meal. Now, drinks in hand, good will restored, you're not only coming back, but telling all your friends how well you were treated.

Same thing here. Change your policy. Issue refunds. Win over the hearts and minds of your parking customers.

CPM old buddy, I hope this little talk has help straighten you out.

If you're going to be around for the next 75 years, we're all going to have to learn to get along.

But, this next round of drinks are on you, because I'm broke.

Plus, I need to save up my quarters for parking.