Balaraja blog

What’s up with that? Can I use the same parking-meter receipt to park on different streets in Chicago?

Jake Malooley, Time Out Chicago

Q This weekend a friend told me that you could use the same parking-meter receipt to park on different streets as long as the time hadn't run out on it. I've always assumed that you could use a parking-meter receipt only on the block where the pay-and-display machine issued it. What's the story?

A Chicagoans awoke on New Year's Day to hangovers and higher meter rates. Thankfully, parking receipts can be used until the time purchased expires on any street in a same- or lower-rate area. Chicago's meters are divided into three rate zones. The lion's share (29,275 or 81 percent) are in the neighborhoods and cost $1.50 per hour. The Central Business District, bordered by North Avenue, Roosevelt Road, Halsted Street and Lake Michigan, has 5,744 meters and costs $3 per hour. In the Loop, officially bounded by Wacker on the North and West, Congress Parkway and the lake, parking at one of the 1,033 meters will set you back $5 for 60 minutes. If your receipt was issued in the Loop, for instance, you can float to any spot in the city within the amount of time you purchased. Chicago Parking Meters, the city's meter leasee, refers to this as "portable time." Yeah, it sounds like a stoner theory of temporality, but it'll save you some green.

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