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Business
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Friday, 18 September 2009 05:29 |
 By James Ginderske
It wasn’t as though no one saw it coming.
Back when the Great Parking Meter Sell Off was pushed through the City Council in just three days’ time, people questioned the potential consequences of the hurried deal. Those questions were answered loudly, clearly, and harshly this week on North Clark Street, and the impact is shaping up to be a crushing blow to area commerce.
At first glance, the boxes, similar in design to the rest that have replaced the meters across Chicago, seem neat and tidy. As one Clark Street merchant said: “They do look nice. Much better than meters sticking up all over.”
These boxes are a far cry from functional public art, however. Instead, they seem to be repelling people and vehicles to a degree not seen before, even with the previous cutbacks in consumer spending due to the economy.
According to Anita Miller, who has owned a business on Clark for ten years, “Parking has always been a problem here, but this is really a monumental kind of thing ... fewer people are patronizing the businesses here.”
Even a casual observer can’t help but notice the open space in what was just a few weeks ago one of the busiest commercial areas in Rogers Park. Whole blocks that normally are filled with cars now remain open for lengthy periods.
Meanwhile, Chicago Police on ATVs patrol the street, peering into the windows of the few cars present to verify that LAZ Parking has been paid for the space.
Paying at the boxes is described as challenging for many. Although the machines offer a small computer screen with instructions in several languages, the boxes are covered with colorful stickers printed solely in English.
Several Spanish speakers interviewed also observed that the Spanish instructions available aren’t clear to all readers, making them unattractive to users.
Another factor is the type of payments accepted, a formula that seems especially poorly suited to Clark Street.
 “You can use a credit card, or coins. No dollar bills. That’s it,” one store owner observed. Several reported a steady stream of people requesting change. “They come in and try to jump past the [paying] customers to get change. They’re afraid they’re going to get a ticket.”
One restauranteur said: “People are afraid to put their card into the machine. They don’t trust it.”
Nearly everyone interviewed refused to be quoted by name, and several cited fear of retaliation by the “City” as the reason.
One said, “I think we have a serious problem. They have chased away our business. The rest of Chicago is one thing, but here at the edge of the City – [the customers have] gone. You’ve been in my store all this time [about 20 minutes], and no customers. It wasn’t like that before.”
Several also noted that without meters, people no longer know exactly where to park. When sections of the street do fill up, cars park in random clusters that use more than the single spaces that were once marked off by the meters placed alongside them.
“Now they go wherever. ... It eats up spaces. ... It just makes no sense that they do this,” said one grocery store manager.
Another business owner, her voice barely audible in an empty shop said: “It is bad, very bad for business. The people are gone. It’s no good.” Her large brown eyes stared at me as she added, earnestly: “I don’t want to make trouble, but [it] is very bad.”
It is a challenging situation. LAZ Parking, which has the contract from the City of Chicago is legally entitled to manage the spaces using the machines.
But a combination of factors – the need for quarters, the distrust many people feel for the machines themselves, the language barriers, and the need to walk to the machine, pay, retrieve a receipt and then walk back and place it in the vehicle – seem to be enough to discourage people from shopping on Clark Street.
“Who do you call if it takes more [than it should]? The 800 number? They don’t care,” said one business owner as he sat on a couch in his quiet store. While customer-service and public-relations representatives from LAZ state clearly that they do care, it’s hard to find anyone on Clark Street who believes them.
One man said of the relentless ticketing by police and a private enforcement service: “That’s the final straw. ... How is a woman with three kids ... a stroller, bags supposed to walk there [to the paybox for a receipt] and back? ... Why should she come here for that bullshit? She can just go to Evanston. And that’s what’s happening here.”
Several business owners expressed concern about the future of Clark Street as a commercial district, and some offered ideas to make things better.
One woman, who owns a small convenience store, said, “They need to get change machines out there, to give quarters to people who need them.”
Another suggested giving everyone five minutes “free time” so they can run errands (and spend money) without the hassle of the parking boxes. “Plus, that way people won’t get tickets when they’re paying the stupid box and walking back to their cars.”
Several said that the best thing to do would be to just bring back the meters. Others were hopeful that people will get used to the new arrangement.
One man, shaking his head slowly as he stood with his hands upon the counter of his restaurant, said in a resigned tone: “Maybe it is time to just go. ... If they [the City] don’t want us here, we will have to leave. I like this neighborhood. My kids like their school ... but it may be time to move on. You have to make money to stay in business.” |
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