Members of an Evanston city panel Wednesday raised no objections to extending parking meter enforcement hours on Howard Street and learned that city staff plans to ask the City Council for a similar extension citywide.
Members of an Evanston city panel Wednesday raised no objections to extending parking meter enforcement hours on Howard Street and learned that city staff plans to ask the City Council for a similar extension citywide.
Currently meters downtown demand 75-cents an hour from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., while ones in other business districts only need to be fed 50-cents an hour from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, told the Transportation and Parking Committee that since the City of Chicago recently dramatically raised its parking meter rates and requires drivers to feed the meters on the south side of Howard Street until 9 p.m., there’s now mass shift of cars to the Evanston side of the street each evening at 6 p.m. when Evanston’s meters go to sleep.
Rainey suggested the city should capture some added revenue from those parkers.
Her proposed change would apply to the 600 through 900 blocks of Howard.
Assistant City Manager Marty Lyons said staff is considering a change to have all meters operate until 9 p.m. as a revenue enhancement measure for the new city budget.
“The overall change is part of the budget-balancing exercise,” Lyons said, suggesting that if the City Council was inclined to pursue it, the proposal might be sent back to the Transportation/Parking Committee for further discussion.
The meter hours extension does not appear to have been included in the City Manager’s proposed budget, and it was not possible to learn immediately how much additional revenue it might generate.