“All sorts of remedies were proposed,” recalled John LaPlante. “Ban all cars from the Loop. Ban street parking. Ban left turns. Ban right turns. Ban all turns.”
No gang’s turf, no hot development property, is fought over more energetically than the 8- to 10-foot-wide strip of asphalt that lies next to a Loop sidewalk. “The curb lane is where the action takes place,” task-force chairman Richard Hocking explained. That space is public property, and much of it has been set aside for uses palpably in the public interest–loading zones mainly, from bus stops and taxi stands to truck docks and parking spaces for the handicapped. The rest has been converted to metered parking spaces for use by that class of Loop visitor, such as errand runners, tourists, and shoppers, whose presence is essential to the Loop but whose short-term parking needs cannot conveniently be provided for anywhere else than on the street.
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The half-hour limits on Loop parking meters are intended to guarantee rapid turnover of these curbside spaces; theoretically, a single parking space could thus accommodate well over a dozen such transients per business day. From the city’s point of view, then, using a curbside space to park a single car all day is about as sensible as using your dining room to store your wedding dress and baby crib. Hocking called this “not the best use of the facility. Obviously, the intent of policy has been sublimated to the desires of Loop workers to park cheaply.”
Such restrictions, coupled with the loss of existing off-street spaces as surface parking lots are built upon, have pushed up the demand for off-street parking, and thus the price that garage operators can command. According to a 1988 survey by Friends of Downtown, monthly rental rates in parts of the Loop ran as high as $325 per space, with most costing around $150.
“The trucks still have to get in there,” said an exasperated Hocking, who added that as a result they must load and unload in alleys or, worst of all, in traffic lanes. Then other vehicles that need access to the curb, such as buses, are pushed out into traffic lanes in turn; obstructed, buses become traffic obstructions themselves. Hopes among retailers of rerouting some bus traffic from State onto Dearborn will founder if buses can’t move through Dearborn. “Once one part of the Loop traffic system gets out of whack,” Hocking said, “the whole thing suffers.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Peter Hannan.
