By tradition and case law, Chicago's lakefront is supposed to be free, and I find no legal citations that say parking meters are allowed.
Yet, the Chicago Park District intends to install 4,000 parking meters, charging $1 an hour, in its lakefront parks, doing away with the longstanding tradition of free parking.
Even though I defended (in theory) the big increases charged for use of the city's curbside meters, I think that the Park District is going about it in the wrong way as a revenue-raiser. A better plan is:
Make only suburbanites pay the higher tariff. Especially, anyone from Lake Forest, which has raised the practice of nicking out-of-towners for the use of their beach to a high art. Fair is fair,
fair, considering the ingenious ways that North Shore suburbs have figured out how to keep
out the riff-raff.
In Chicago, the beaches indeed are free. No one checks your driver's
license or municipal car sticker to confirm that you are a Chicagoan
before you can use the beach or park conveniently nearby. But try to
use, say, the Lake Forest municipal beach, and you'll pay.
By all rights, you should be able to use the Lake Forest beach for free
because Illinois taxpayers paid for some major improvements years ago.
The state isn't--and shouldn't be--in the habit of barring its taxpayers
from using facilities they paid for. I raised the issue back then in a
Chicago Sun-Times column, but the difference between then and now is
that back then, anyone could, in fact, use the beach without charge.
The only problem then was finding a convenient place to park. Now you
have to pay to use the beach, and finding a parking spot still is a
problem--again by Lake Forest's design.
Here are the Lake Forest rules, as posted on the swanky northern
suburb's website. Residents use the beach free, but need to show proof
of residency. Residents also can park at the beach lot for free, but
non-residents must park at a downtown municipal or Metra parking lot,
located more than a mile away. It'll cost you $3 a day to park. If you
want to chance parking on a side street closer to the beach, you can
get fined $125. Of course, when you finally slog your way to the beach,
you'll have to fork over $10.
There is at least one remarkable alternative, as explained by this ad on Craig's List:
"Attention Beach Visitors: Rent 1, 2, 3 or 4 off-street private parking
spaces one block to Lake Forest beach. Automobiles and motorcycles
only. Available 7 days a week for beach visitors - May 1st to October
1st. Overnight parking prohibited. $250.00 month each space or
$1,100.00 for 5 months. Additional discounts for renting multi-spaces."
So, here's my proposal. Suburbanites (or anyone without a Chicago
vehicle sticker) has to park at least a mile away from any city beach
(for whatever the going rate is, and if it's downtown, it'll be a
bundle). Anyone caught parking on a Chicago side street closer to the
beach without a city sticker gets fined $125. Of course, when a
suburbanite gets to the beach, he has to pay a $10 entrance fee.
I don't know how legal or practical this is, but it could afford some
relief to Chicagoans. Either in the form of less demand for lakeshore
parking, or in terms of extra revenue, maybe enough that they wouldn't
have to feed the Park District's meters.
Unlike Chicago's street parking meters, which have been raised to sky
This column also appeared on the Chicago Daily Observer
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: beach, Chicago lakefront, Chicago Park District, Lake Forest, Metra, parking meters
LOL. Bravo Dennis. Did you take the picture?
One concern I have, though, is if we do work harder to keep suburbanites out (by taxing them so fearlessly), won't this have an ultimately detrimental effect on city revenues. At some point, the suburbanites will build water parks and other attractions and stay home instead of paying us for the privilege of saying the spent the day in Chicago.
Yes, it could work to keep out suburbanites, just as I feel the high city hotel taxes in Chicago don't do the convention and tourism business here any good. My suggestion to nick the suburbanites is more tongue in cheek, although I do think that what Lake Forest does to keep outsiders out is pretty cheeky in itself.