Parking Wars Chicago Style

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the A&E Channel, and one of my favorite shows is Parking Wars. It's on Saturdays at 9 PM, and then replays throughout the week. They have had series in Detroit, Philadelphia and Providence, but with the latest news out of Chicago, I wonder how long it will take for them to start filming in the Windy City!

In case you haven't heard, the Chicago Parking Authority has just raised the price of one hour parking from $5.75 to $6.50! That's right, $6.50 to park on the streets in Chicago using one of the meters. The meters there take credit cards, a good thing too, otherwise everyone would be walking around with rolls of quarters in their pockets! That's more than double than what parking cost in the Loop back in 2008.

This is just the first of five years of initial meter hikes, and in 2014, hikes will be indexed to the rate of inflation. This all is due to the 75 year, that's right 75 year contract the City of Chicago has with Chicago Parking Meters LLC.

I'll take the train