 | Chicago Parking Reviews | Tips 1 - 10 of 11 |  |
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Updated 6/19/07 Parking in Chicago is expensive, especially during the week. Sometimes you can get early bird specials on the weekdays if you come early enough. If you are coming in by plane, you should not need to have a car. If you are lucky enough to find a free or metered spot on the street, check all the signs very carefully. There are resident only parking zones, there are rush hour/business hour tow zones, no parking if it's snowing zones, leaf cleaning, etc. If you need to park near Michigan Avenue or in River North, try the Sterling Self Park on Kinzie between LaSalle and Clark. Last time I parked there it was $8 after 3:00pm on weekdays and on weekends. If it's the weekend, you might check some of the garages in the downtown business area or in River North since their customers are mostly downtown only Mon-Fri during the day, some of the garages have weekend/evening specials. The Millennium Park garages at Columbus and Monroe used to be a bargain but their 24 hour rate has risen to $23. Hotel parking is the worst, they seem to range around $30-40 per day. One of the few hotels that has free parking is the Best Western River North at Ohio and LaSalle, also Howard Johnson River North. If you are downtown on a major event day such as a Bears game, Taste of Chicago, Chicago Marathon, etc., the garages will hike the rates even higher calling it "Special Events Parking". The closer you are to the event, the higher the rate will be. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Parking: Parking at Cubs Games | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Unless you have no choice, avoid driving to Cubs games. Parking is expensive ($25 - $50 and sometimes much higher), the streets are jam packed after the game, and in some cases you will be trapped into your spot and not be able to leave until the people around you leave. Some places will ask you to leave your keys. And if you decide to try your luck at street parking, you will probably get towed. Also, avoid parking on Clark at all costs - you will sit there in traffic forever. I would recommend taking the CTA Red Line to Addison Station. If you must drive here, there are 2 decent options I always use: 1. If you are willing to pay the price for good parking and easy-out privileges, there is a lot on Addison directly across from Wrigley Field. You can follow the alleys to the south when you are ready to leave. 2. If you don't mind a walk, you can find a couple cheaper lots east of Wrigley Field on Addison at a school, or a few up and down Halsted near Addison. In the picture, my car (left) was sandwiched between 2 cars, was backed up against a brick wall, and had an SUV parked an inch in front. I waited 45 minutes before the person to my left showed up to leave, then another 2 hours before the SUV left. This is why I urge you to take public transportation. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Parking: Parking dibs | Tip Rating: | | | | |
If are you driving into Chicago and parking out in any of the neighborhoods in the snowy winter months, in addition to watching out for all the snowfall tow signs and resident sticker only parking signs, you also need to watch out for objects such as lawn chairs, milk crates, buckets or cones marking the parking spot for a local resident who shoveled out the spot for their car. There's public debate about this practice every year after the first big snowfall but as it's a long standing tradition, some say endorsed by the Mayor, and it's not likely to go away anytime soon. It's technically illegal but then again so is ghost payrolling and dead people voting ;-) So don't move those items littering the streets and try to park there, you may return to a nasty note if you are lucky, slashed tires or a broken window if you're not. One of the worst stories I've heard was about a poor clueless suburbanite who dared to move a cone, they returned to find their car buried in snow and buckets of water poured over their car. Needless to say, it was there for awhile. But the worst is from the 2007 Darwin Awards: "A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space...understandably, he shot her." Leave a Comment
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