While other places might be stewing over President Obama’s Nobel Prize, Tiger Woods’s infidelities, or the Copenhagen climate summit, the big news in Chicago is parking meters:
Hundreds of flights were canceled at O’Hare and Midway. Trains were delayed on the CTA’s Purple, Pink and Green lines because of a switching problem in the Loop. Cars wouldn’t start, garages froze shut, water pipes burst. Blame it all on Mother Nature.
But those frozen parking meters are Mayor Richard Daley’s fault. That was the overwhelming sentiment as frigid citizens found that some of the new parking kiosks wouldn’t take their money, or worse, wouldn’t spit out a receipt.
Buttons were stuck, credit card slots iced shut, and the fact that you had to hike half a block to get stiffed by the machine made it all the more maddening.
“I hope there is a special place in heck for Daley,” said one contributor to the Tribune’s online comment board.
I don’t think that I can improve on what I observed the last time that subject was big news here:
Using a parking meter system that works perfectly well in Atlanta here in Chicago? What could possibly go wrong?
;->
And they want to run health care…………
a ‘snow job on parking’ !! lol (to use that cliche)
If you are as prescient on the financial mess affecting our future as you are about parking meters, I will read your stuff like gospel!
You know, when global warming comes Daley will look like a genius.