Monday, November 9, 2009
Bicycling / Politics / Clout City The Active Transportation Alliance Does an About-Face on the Parking Meter Deal
Posted by Mick Dumke on Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 6:52 PM
- Flickr user Calamity_Sal/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Five months ago the city’s largest bicycling and transit advocacy group released a report ripping the Daley administration for entering into the parking meter privatization agreement. Yet Monday night the Active Transportation Alliance inducted Mayor Daley into its “hall of fame,” and the group will soon release a new version of the report—screened beforehand by city officials—that will recant many of the criticisms it made in June.
"We made some key mistakes in how we analyzed the agreement" the first time, says Rob Sadowsky, the group’s executive director. "But it gave us an opportunity to step back and have a dialogue with the city."
Daley, Sadowsky adds, has always been one of the group’s "partners" in developing policies and building infrastructure to promote bicycling, walking, and transit. “I’d put our mayor up against anyone.”
We didn’t hear that kind of love emanating from the alliance over the summer, when it released "Unrealized Assets: How leasing control of parking meters limits the future of active transport and innovative urban planning." The report pretty much said what its title suggests: that by privatizing operations of the meter system the city severely reduced its flexibility in setting traffic policy.
The report noted that while the city technically retains the right to remove or change the location, hours, or rates of any metered space in the city, it must compensate the private operator, Chicago Parking Meters LLC, or add meters or meter hours in a comparable location elsewhere. "The City’s ability to use streets in fresh, people-centric ways is now dictated, controlled and limited by the arrangements and penalties within the parking meters lease," the report concluded.
City officials slammed the report, arguing that they’d always had to make up for lost revenue if they’d cut the number or hours of meters. But they couldn’t deny that such decisions were far more complicated and costly than before the privatization deal. "The agreement preserves aldermanic rights to change meter locations, rates, and hours of operation," budget department spokesman Pete Scales said. "However, any changes to the schedule may have an impact on revenues, and the city retains responsibility for that impact."
City officials also had harsh words for the transportation alliance, accusing it of failing to get the city’s input before releasing the study. Alliance leaders said they’d tried to contact the city but hadn’t received a response.
Once the report made headlines, though, the city was eager to talk. Sadowsky says city officials sat down with members of his organization, provided official details about the meter agreement, and made a convincing case that the city retained full control of traffic policy. So convincing that on July 10, a little more than two weeks after the report was released, Sadowsky wrote to two of Daley’s top aides. The city posted a PDF of it online.
"It was never our intention to embarrass the city," Sadowsky wrote. "On behalf of the Active Transportation Alliance, I would like to simply state that we should not have published this report. I am embarrassed that it not only contains factual errors, but that it also paints an incorrect interpretation of the lease’s overall goals." He promised to issue a new report that the alliance would "submit to the city for review."
Sadowsky says that second report is nearly done, but there isn’t much suspense about what it’s going to conclude. He now thinks the meter deal will actually help the city set traffic policy—the exact opposite finding of the original report—because Chicago Parking Meters is replacing traditional meters with pay boxes. “Not only are the options the same but there may be more options,” he says. “Now they can raise rates and do variable pricing because of those boxes.”
Sadowsky says he hopes administration officials will be on hand when the revised report is officially released.
The group’s brief pissing match with the city is obviously over. At the alliance's annual meeting Monday night, the mayor was honored as "the Ultimate Campaign Manager."
“Good friends sometimes disagree,” Sadowsky says. “It’s good to be able to be blunt and honest.”
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Wow, talk about caving to the man.
Looks like Sadowsky's planning to run for City Council. Way to go, dude, the machine really needs another yes-man.
BTW, looking forward to reading in that second report about ATA's position on the removal of individual parking meters, which provide secure places to lock bikes. I haven't seen any new racks going up on the sidewalks to replace the junked meters.
I'm no Daley fan, but why assume this is "caving to the man"? Maybe there WERE errors and they're right to feel embarrassed. It's not like it was in a peer-reviewed journal or anything.
Also, I've seen a lot of old meters left behind with stickers that say "Left behind as a courtesy to cyclists."
Oh please, it's so obvious that Daley either threatened to take something away or offered them something to make it go away.
And yes, plenty of old meters were left behind for cyclists. I've seen 2-3 per block on average.
The Daley administarion has been known to buy (or at least rent the use of) black ministers by the bunch, so why shouldn't Mayor DINO branch out into groups like this?
Katie, it depends where you live. My area (Rogers Park) has 2-3 every other block, and none at all on the side streets. They actually REMOVED the bike parking they had to make room for the Pay to Play box.
It would be great if Sadowsky got elected to the City Council - as long as the ensuing conflict of interest would compel him to quit his job as destroyer in chief of our former bicycle advocacy organization.
Let LAZ parking know how you feel about their extraordinary relationship with the city:
http://www.chicagometers.com/contact-us.as…
Katie, nonya, and Ipstenu,
Thanks for the comment about the remaining parking meters. I've seen 'em in Rogers Park, Andersonville, Uptown, and Wicker Park. They're all full up: 2x2 bikes. As are the skinny trees, chain link fences, and u-channel sign posts.
Here's the thing: when the LAZ parking deal was announced, ATA sent one of their increasingly rare emails to members urging public action. In this case, it was asking members to email their aldermen to oppose the deal on the grounds of 16,000 lost parking spots for bikes, etc. Emails were sent, the meters were removed anyway.
I'm not expecting Chicago to become Portland overnight, let alone Amsterdam, but if CBF->ATA means rolling over to the machine as usual, I'll drop ATA and ride in Critical Mass again. The bottom line is that if you want people to ride or walk, you've got to have a safe and stable infrastructure first.
There definitely were errors in the original ATA Report, and as a member of Active Transportation Alliance who regularly checks their blog, they posted a lot of updates as they worked to resolve some of the discrepancies with the city and force there to be more transparency. I don't think inducting Mayor Daley into the Hall of Fame is a bad move or "caving in to the man". If you know anything about bike history in Chicago AND the work of Active Transportation Alliance/CBF, then you know that Mayor Daley has been a MAJOR player in making Chicago more bike friendly. If you check out Chicago's Bike 2015 plan (written by CBF/ATA), you will see the initiatives that Mayor Daley plans on implementing and his/Chicago's goals for the future of cycling in Chicago. ATA isn't the flip flopper here - fair weather cyclists who forget who is rooting and fighting for them are.
I'm from the near west suburbs. It was bad enough to come into Chicago and pay $12-14 at an outdoor lot for 2-3 hours of parking knowing that now and then, I could still score an inexpensive metered spot.
Now that LAZ has hiked up the meter rates and made it so expensive to park, me, my friends, and our dollars will stay in the burbs where parking is still free and unfettered.
LAZ is not helping the Chicago economy at all....
rob is a really good guy, and all the active trans staff and volunteers are very passionate about what they do. the fact is that, for better or for worse, nothing in this town gets done unless you have a good working relationship with city hall. some ata staffers actually work in the cdot offices and i have a feeling that may have played a part in this. besides, i think what they were initially concerned about had nothing to do with whether or not the city was shortchanged on the deal, but for example whether the city could decide to change the number of parking spots on a given block to install things like traffic calming bulb-outs and such.
"I'm not expecting Chicago to become Portland overnight, let alone Amsterdam, but if CBF->ATA means rolling over to the machine as usual, I'll drop ATA and ride in Critical Mass again. The bottom line is that if you want people to ride or walk, you've got to have a safe and stable infrastructure first."
And when did Critical Mass actually contribute any infrastructure?
And if I see a biker locking their bike up around a newly-planted tree they're gonna get smacked in the head. The most critical think for bikers is to stop thinking they are better than everyone else - bikers don't build roads. bikers don't buy city stickers to maintain the roads.
I've been biking for almost 30 years, and only in the last 5 or so have I seen such a ridiculous new wave of spoiled BRATS on bikes who think they own the city.
mikey diesel,
Clearly you're new to Chicagoland so I'll give you a little help. If you live in the "near west suburbs" (or even far west/north/whatever suburbs for that matter) they have this thing called "Metra" that can bring you into the city where you can spend your big suburban money to help our poor Chicago economy. Amazingly, once you get in the city you have the ability to take the "CTA" (buses and trains, oh my!) to get to just about anywhere you want to go. Otherwise, I suggest you open your eyes, stand up, look directly down and see those two things touching the floor? They're called your feet. By moving them one after the other they can get you to places as well. Try them out some time, they're fun!
Quit complaining, use public transit. No car, no cost to park. It's a pretty simple fix.
ATA might help their case some if they actually published the errors in the original report, or a corrected version of the report. No doubt City Hall would also be delighted to be relieved of the burden of suspicion in this whole matter.
Agree with Mikey Dielsel. I'll be visiting the city less and less.
http://www.crowleyautotransport.com/
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