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Chicago Parking Meters
American parking meter company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, also known as ParkChicago,[1] is an American company[2] with several investors[3] that owns the parking meters in the city of Chicago, Illinois. The company has gained notoriety for its roots in the sale of the City of Chicago's parking meters to private investors, considered a financial disaster for the city.
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History
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During the 2008 financial crisis, the City of Chicago faced a major budget deficit, which prompted then-Mayor Richard M. Daley to propose the sale of city-owned parking meters. Brokers affiliated with Morgan Stanley then formed an LLC called "Chicago Parking Meters LLC" to facilitate a potential deal with the city over the sale of the meters.[4] By December 3, 2008, a deal was made to sell all 36,000[5][6] of the parking meter spots in the city for 75 years for $1.15 billion.[7][8] The deal was approved and finalized on December 4, 2008. When the deal went through, prices increased and many meters were vandalized in the initial rollout.[9]
A 2009 report conducted by then-Inspector General David Hoffman, found that the city was paid "conservatively, $974 million less" than what the city would have received from 75 years of parking meter revenue, if it didn't lease out the meters.[10][11]
In 2013, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel negotiated changes to the deal, by reducing the city’s liability to reimburse investors for every parking space taken out of service, by increasing the hours and days motorists pay for parking. In the 2013 deal was also an agreement to move 176 parking pay boxes from city control to CPM LLC control.[12][10]
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced an order that parking tickets would “only” be issued for safety reasons and parking at an expired meter did not represent a public safety threat. Lightfoot did remind motorists that they should still pay to park at meters. The order was in effect for two and a half months.[13] During 2020, the city also reclaimed 4,007 parking spaces — that were managed by Chicago Parking Meters LLC — then return 2,646 of those parking spaces back, two months later, keeping a total of 1,361 spaces for the city.[14] The order and reclaiming of parking spots, created a years long litigation leading to a settlement of $15.5 million for the city to compensate CPM LLC for meter violations, the suspension of parking tickets, and a dispute over the distribution of meter revenue.[15][16]
In 2023, the investors in CPM LLC have recouped their investment plus $500 million, and still have 60 years left on the deal.[17] As of 2025, an audit reveled the meters, in total, generated $1.97 billion through 2024 for CPM LLC.[10]
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Criticism
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The contract has been widely criticized as a negative example of privatization.[18] Part of the deal is that if any of the metered parking spots are not available as such, for any reason—i.e., parades, street maintenance, electrification for electric vehicles, bike lanes,[19] or outdoor seating—then the city has to compensate the LLC for their projected losses.[20] Because compensation costs are so expensive, it had been criticized for limiting development of city infrastructure.[21]
Investors
The investors in the LLC according to the City of Chicago are listed below.[3] Matt Taibbi in Griftopia claims that Deeside investments owns 49.9% (and possibly a controlling share[22]) and Redoma S.a.r.l. owns 50.1%.[23]
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