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Quote/Term of the Week

“How many of us read this stuff when we do get it?”

— Former Ald. Dick Mell (33rd Ward) after  former Mayor Richard M. Daley proposed to sell off Chicago’s parking meters

[December 2008, Chicago City Council]

The return of the… parking meter?

Chicago’s parking meters are for sale, but it looks like Chicago isn’t in the market. 

Nearly 20 years after the fated deal privatized the city’s meters, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office explored what it could look like for the city to regain ownership, or at least assume more control over them, ABC7 reported. After exploring the potential costs of a buyback — as much as triple the original $1.15 billion price tag — Johnson said thanks, but no thanks, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. 

Let’s take a look at the original disastrous deal that got us here: 

In 2008, facing another huge budget deficit, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley introduced a saving grace to City Council: selling the city’s 36,000 parking meters to a set of private investors.

The deal was approved by City Council in less than 72 hours, receiving little pushback. A consortium of Morgan Stanley, Allianz Capital Partners and the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi bought the meters in a  $1.15 billion, 75-year lease agreement. 

Only after it was finalized did Chicago's inspector general determine the deal was seriously undervalued. The city sold the meters for around half the price they were worth had we maintained ownership and kept the cash for those 75 years.

The deal was an undisputed political nightmare. While it allowed Daley to avoid raising property taxes, the city spent much of the money on short-term costs, and  the city continued falling behind in funding its pensions. 

(Daley’s negligence when paying into the city’s pensions funds, is a key criticism of his administration, and it was a key sticking point in this year’s budget talks as a coalition of alders pushed through a plan that greatly increases the 2026 pension payment over what Johnson proposed. The city pension debt is still around $36 billion). 

The new owners then hiked the rates, particularly downtown, which went from $3 an hour in 2008 to $6.50 an hour in 2013. It currently stands $7 an hour. They also expanded the meters into neighborhood business districts. What’s more, the deal required us to pay the new owners fees anytime the city blocked off parking or took a meter out of service, such as to make room for a festival. 

In response, Chicagoans protested the deal, some even going as far as to vandalize and steal parking meters off of the streets.

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), a junior alderperson at the time, was among the five alders to vote against the deal, referring to it as “the worst deal, I think, in municipal history in the United States,” during a conversation with NPR.

While fees from parking tickets go to the city, any revenue generated from the meters themselves spells profit for the private owners, never to be seen by Chicago taxpayers. Audits show the meters brought in roughly $160.9 million in 2024. In 2023, 14 years after the deal, the private owners had recouped their original $1.15 billion payment plus another $530 million in meter fees.

Now, those owners are looking to sell. It was never going to be an easy task for Chicago to claw back that deal — at minimum, it would have meant “astronomical” interest rates to borrow the necessary cash, Waguespack said — but now it looks like Johnson’s office has abandoned the idea. The city would have needed to cough up around $3 billion to buy back control of the meters, Crain’s reported on Tuesday.

It’s not yet clear who the new buyer is or how much they paid for the contract. 

What you can do:

Catch up on the headlines & history:

  • Today in Chicago History: Mayor Richard M. Daley strikes lopsided parking meter deal | Chicago Tribune

  • Chicago’s parking meter deal a lesson in ‘worst practices’ | Better Government Association

  • Parking meter deal that Chicagoans love to hate gets $15.5 million worse | WBEZ

  • Parking meter deal keeps on giving — for private investors, not Chicago taxpayers | Sun-Times 

A version of this story was first published in the January 21, 2026 issue of the Newswire, an email newsletter that is your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what we can do to make our city great. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Have thoughts on what you'd like to see in this feature? Email Civic Editor Dawn Rhodes at dawn@citybureau.org.