Posted by Tribune staff at 1:20 p.m.
Drivers will be able to get one parking meter ticket a year thrown out, provided they held onto their pay box receipt and the violation was issued within five minutes of the expiration.
The City Council approved Mayor Richard Daley’s plan today, a few weeks after he first proposed it.
"The change will assist motorists who are occasionally ticketed for accidentally overstaying the time on their pay box receipt by a few minutes, despite trying to comply with parking requirements by purchasing adequate parking time," Daley said in a statement.
The revision also allows drivers with unexpired receipts who move their cars to another metered spot to use the same pay receipt, provided the new parking spot is at the same or lesser hourly rate.
Daley administration officials have said City Hall
always has instructed employees issuing parking tickets not to cite
cars when the meter has just expired.
The new ordinance codifies that.
the parking meter system to a private company for 75 years in return
for a one-time windfall he’s dipping into to balance his budget. The
lease resulted in major rate increases last year and this year and a
public backlash against the mayor and aldermen who approved it.
Daley previously has said he was pushing the parking ticket change because of ongoing anger over the parking meter lease.