EXTRA: Scouring for Sunday parking?

I'm almost nostalgic for this sight

A part of me is twisted enough to want to take my hunk-of-junk automobile out for a ride across as much of Chicago as I can cover come Sunday.

Because I’d want to see just how much of a difference it makes now that people will no longer have to feed those new digital pay boxes (we can’t really say we’re “feeding the meter” any longer) in order to avoid a parking ticket.

OF COURSE, THAT would be more of a waste of gasoline than I’d want to encounter. Somehow, I suspect that would cost more than I’d save by not having to pay for parking on the one day of the week that God supposedly told us to rest.

Besides, in my case, I’m going to be with family out in the Beverly neighborhood on Sunday – a massive barbecue being done on behalf of Father’s Day. It will be interesting to see mi padre, even though if I’m comprehending the change in parking policy approved earlier this month by the City Council, that particular area is among those where people still have to pay.

It’s only a dozen of the 50 wards where the new no-paying-on-Sunday policy takes effect on Father’s Day. The rest of the city is going to have to wait until July 1 – which could make Independence Day the learning period for the bulk of the city (particularly those parts up North).

Which means I’m likely to have to resort to my usual methods of scouring for a not-blatantly-illegal place to park my automobile when I make my trip.

IT’S ALSO GOING to mean that Chicago residents and people visiting the city are going to have to keep it straight in their minds where they can, and cannot, leave their automobiles without paying up.

It will be worse when the council later this year is expected to approve enough exceptions for business districts across the city where you will still have to pay on Sunday.

The bottom line seems to be that city officials want to receive credit for doing something to eliminate parking fees – a contentious issue ever since former Mayor Richard M. Daley a few years ago sold off control of parking meters to a private company.

A parking meter alternative? Image by railroadpictures.net

But that doesn’t mean government officials want to lose the money being pumped into those machines. They just want us to quit despising and blaming them so much for having to pay up!

JUST THINKING ABOUT this confusion of where one can park without hassle is headache inducing. It makes me wonder if I need to start carrying aspirin with my when I drive into the city.

Or better yet, just revert back to my habit of using mass transit in the city whenever possible. That’s the easiest way to avoid parking tickets by a cop too eager to fulfill his quota.

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