One of the greatest accomplishments of Chicago’s planners and politicians was the preservation of the city’s lakefront for parkland. Mayor Richard J. Daley once declared that “the lakefront is for the people.” This remains true today, as parks and recreation centers line Lake Michigan from South Shore to Rogers Park.
“The Loyola field house is the only one in the city of Chicago with meters. Residents park there after work,” Krasne said. “You go out on Saturday morning and look at that lot at 8, 9, 10, or 11 AM and it is full–but the park and beach is empty. It is a community parking lot.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
They also turned to 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore, who met individually with park board members hoping to convince them to roll back the fee hike to 25 cents an hour and permit more free parking. He was partly successful. In a letter last month from Bridget Reidy, director of lakefront services for the Park District, the district agreed to permit free parking after 7 PM–rather than 9 PM–at 40 meters located on the beach side of the park by Lunt Street. However the other 65 meters in the Loyola Beach lot, 36 meters on Greenleaf east of Sheridan, and 61 meters at Touhy and Sheridan would still have to be fed from 9 AM to 9 PM. The new 50-cents-an-hour rate stayed where it was.
Lunt-Lake resident Maynard Krasne added, “They don’t want to be fair. They want revenue. They want to charge lakefront users to compete [for parking spaces] with the community.”
Fees for the parking meters had not been raised since 1967, Reidy said.
But the fee hike “will not only affect people on Lunt and Greenleaf but it affects people who use the park,” argued Ken Brierre, president of the Loyola Park Advisory Council. “A Hispanic family that lives on Clark Street that is just making it can’t afford it. . . . It’s a difficult situation.”
