Despite business community concerns, Council committee backs parking enforcement by citizens

To snitch or not to snitch. That could soon be the question that Chicagoans will have to answer when it comes to policing parking violations by commercial vehicles.

Despite lingering concerns about the impact on business, the City Council’s Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety on Monday approved a newly revised ordinance that would authorize Chicagoans to use their cellphones to provide recorded evidence of bus, bike lane and crosswalk parking violations.

Three months ago, concerns raised by business groups stalled the ordinance championed by Committee Chair Daniel La Spata (1st) that had already endured several fits and starts.

They argued that Chicago streets are already a maze of protected bike lanes, bump-outs and “changes in parking and turning patterns” that have severely limited curb access for commercial deliveries and repair vehicles.

They also claimed that, when curb space is tight, even well-intentioned drivers can struggle to locate legitimate legal loading zones — and that the city needed to do more to solve that problem before unleashing an avalanche of citizen-generated tickets that could stifle local commerce.

On Monday, La Spata revised the ordinance yet again, but not enough to satisfy Old Town Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd).

In the first phase of implementation, the Department of Finance would create a “Street Operations Task Force” made up of parking enforcement aides “primarily focused on issuing violations for parking in crosswalks, bike and bus lanes “ outside of the current Smart Streets footprint, he said.

In the second phase, City Hall would work to develop a “dispatch system that will allow for 311 complaints about parking violations to be immediately dispatched to active parking enforcement aides, who will be able to arrive immediately and issue a violation,” he said.

“This dispatch system shall be established before Dec. 31, 2026. The program would still only apply to commercial vehicles, and further details would be established by department rule-making,” La Spata said.

"By this July, the departments will be required to provide updates to the committee on results of the first phase of enforcement. Departments would also be required to report to the committee no later than six months after the implementation of the dispatch system.”

La Spata said he's convinced the revised ordinance will "lead to greater safety for all Chicagoans, and in a way that is really responsible and collaborative.” The full City Council must still approve the measure before it becomes law.

Hopkins is not so sure about that, particularly when it comes to the stretch of Wells Street between North Avenue and Division Street in Old Town with a thriving night life that includes restaurants, bars and night clubs. The area has no alley or loading docks. Delivery trucks can only pull up on Wells, where there are bikes lanes on either side of the street.

“Delivery trucks cause a lot of inconvenience for a lot of people — cyclists and motorists as well, if not pedestrians. So people are going to use this to try to get some enforcement," Hopkins said. "The problem is right now, I have no place to tell the trucks to go. Am I supposed to close all of the restaurants? They’re not going to have beer. They’re not going to have wine. They’re not going to have soft drinks. They’re not going to have food because they’re not going to have deliveries. We have to solve this problem."

Vig Krishnamurthy, managing deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, said CDOT will “come to the table with a number of solutions” including loading zones and operational strategies that include off-peak deliveries "when space in the street is more available, when parking demand is lower."

“With a combination of strategies, partnerships, using space efficiently, thinking about different times of day — we can work to adjust. [But] it’s a long adjustment process for sure," Krishnamurthy said.

Hopkins countered that most of the deliveries in the area are made by union drivers. “They don’t want to deliver beer at 2 a.m., and their contract says they don’t have to.”

Delivery companies most responsible for parking violations “may not willingly come to the table” so the city will have to force the issue,” Hopkins said.

“When I start getting angry phone call from Budweiser beer trucks and lobster companies — they’re going to really start getting angry when they get orange tickets piling up under their windshield wipers — I have to have something to tell them other than, `Get out your checkbook,’ “ Hopkins said.

La Spata assured Hopkins that the “process of creating the dispatch system” to implement citizen enforcement “will take several months” that can be used to devise a solution to the delivery problem in congested areas.