McHenry County Blog

Included in the 1974 Regional Transportation Authority legislation was a 15% parking tax.

The logic advanced was that it would encourage people coming Downtown to use mass transportation.

Social engineering at work.

The problem, however, is that lots of people from the suburbs had other places that State Street to go shopping.

So add to the cost of parking and a trip to Chicago became less desirable.

The stores started closing

State Street was turned into a two-lane street.

“We’ll make it look like a suburban mall,” seemed to be the reasoning.

That didn’t work.

The millions spent to narrow State Street to two mainly bus lanes, thus preventing the relatively free flow of traffic, was undone.

As the ciost of parking gets higher in Chicago, fewer people will drive downtown. I think I learned that concept in my first economics course.

The RTA parking tax was repealed about the time the 5% RTA gasoline tax bit the dust.  (That RTA gas tax was another bit of social engineering included in the RTA Act.)

Now Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, having no idea that the idea of hiking parking taxes had negative effects on Chicago’s Loop in the past, is going to impose another parking tax.

Chicago Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis, being new to town, doesn’t know about the RTA parking tax either, but a couple of weeks ago he came up with a delightful editorial campaign.

It has a depiction of a parking lot gate.

Upon the barrier sits the new Chicago Mayor with a big sledge hammer with the words “TAX IT” on the mallet.

He’s saying, “‘Cause I can.”

Know what, Mayor?

‘Cause we can find pretty much everything we want outside of Chicago, we can, too.

When the Regional Transportation Authority was proposed in 1973, it contained a disincentive to drive a car into Chicago’s Loop.

It was a parking tax.

I think it was 15 cents, but it was large enough at the time to deter shoppers. At least that’s what enough Downtown business owners though, because they lobbied successfully for its repeal.

Now comes a politician who was round in 1973—Alderman Ed Burke—proposing to levy a tax on the privilege of driving in the Loop.

“It would reduce the number of automobiles coming into the Central Business District. And No. 2, it would provide a revenue stream for public transit,” Burke told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Burke said he was inspired by the fees London had imposed and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed $8 fee on cars and $21 on trucks.

This is not the first time the social engineer’s approach to “solving” the mass transit funding shortfall has attacked motor vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Chicago Tribune floated one of the original RTA proponents’ ideas—an RTA gas tax. It was abolished about the same time the parking tax disappeared.

Another long-time politician, Mayor Richard Daley reacted negatively, again, according to the Sun-Times:

Let’s not rush to that and scare everybody off. We’re trying to keep businesses here…”

“Are you gonna put I on all the alderman [who] drive down every day? Do you start with them?”

“A congestion fee would have a devastating impact on tourism,” Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper added.

The Sun-Times slso dded an income tax twist:

What about those who consider a congestion fee here a back-door city income tax on suburbanites who work in Chicago?

“One could argue that, since they’re using our streets and not paying the wheel tax that Chicago residents pay, that it would be a fair way of spreading around the responsibility for funding some of our expenses,” Burke said.

Of course, if the Chicago-dominated state government had the courage, they could enact a real Chicago income tax.

Another Ed Burke said, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/those_who_don-t_know_history_are_destined_to/346796.html
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

When the Regional Transportation Authority was proposed in 1973, it contained a disincentive to drive a car into Chicago’s Loop.

It was a parking tax.

I think it was 15 cents, but it was large enough at the time to deter shoppers. At least that’s what enough Downtown business owners though, because they lobbied successfully for its repeal.

Now comes a politician who was round in 1973—Alderman Ed Burke—proposing to levy a tax on the privilege of driving in the Loop.

“It would reduce the number of automobiles coming into the Central Business District. And No. 2, it would provide a revenue stream for public transit,” Burke told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Burke said he was inspired by the fees London had imposed and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed $8 fee on cars and $21 on trucks.

This is not the first time the social engineer’s approach to “solving” the mass transit funding shortfall has attacked motor vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Chicago Tribune floated one of the original RTA proponents’ ideas—an RTA gas tax. It was abolished about the same time the parking tax disappeared.

Another long-time politician, Mayor Richard Daley reacted negatively, again, according to the Sun-Times:

Let’s not rush to that and scare everybody off. We’re trying to keep businesses here…”

“Are you gonna put I on all the alderman [who] drive down every day? Do you start with them?”

“A congestion fee would have a devastating impact on tourism,” Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper added.

The Sun-Times slso dded an income tax twist:

What about those who consider a congestion fee here a back-door city income tax on suburbanites who work in Chicago?

“One could argue that, since they’re using our streets and not paying the wheel tax that Chicago residents pay, that it would be a fair way of spreading around the responsibility for funding some of our expenses,” Burke said.

Of course, if the Chicago-dominated state government had the courage, they could enact a real Chicago income tax.

Another Ed Burke said, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/those_who_don-t_know_history_are_destined_to/346796.html
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”