Chicago's Parking Meter Hell to Get Much Worse: Rates to Skyrocket

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on Chicago's parking meter hell:

Downtown motorists who were paying $3 an hour when meters belonged to the city, now cough up $3.50 an hour, and will pay a whopping $6.50 an hour by 2013 while being forced to feed the meters 24/7, including holidays. Neighborhood parking rates that once ranged from 25 cents and hour to 75 cents an hour now stand at $1 and will rise steadily to $2 by 2013.

After 2013, the City Council is obliged to increase meter revenues by the “rate of inflation,” either by raising rates, adding meters or increasing operating hours. If aldermen “negatively impact” meter revenue, the private operator will have to be “made whole.”

For more on Chicago's decline.For more on the man who runs Chicago with an iron fist,which includes parking meters.