April 12--Aldermen on Wednesday are expected to vote on an amended city ordinance that would let Chicago residents avoid getting slapped with a ticket for parking a pickup truck in a residential neighborhood.
The current ordinance requires pickup truck drivers to have a special parking permit from their alderman's office to park on residential streets, in addition to paying for the city vehicle sticker that all vehicles must have. The special pickup truck permit is free, but drivers who park on a residential street without it risk getting ticketed.
The amended ordinance, which passed the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety last week, would remove the special permit requirement for private-use pickup trucks weighing less than 8,000 pounds. Commercial-use pickup trucks would still be prohibited from parking on residential streets.
The ordinance was written by City Clerk Susana Mendoza and is sponsored by Aldermen Deb Mell, 33rd; Brian Hopkins, 2nd; and Raymond Lopez, 15th. Mendoza is the Democratic candidate for Illinois comptroller.
"It's kind of a no-brainer," said Jason Hernandez, Mell's chief of staff. "We don't anticipate much pushback."
The parking restriction was originally intended to prevent junk-collector trucks from being eyesores on residential streets. Now, however, Mendoza's office noted that more people are buying smaller pickup trucks as passenger vehicles.
The city sticker for a small truck is about $202 per year, already more than $100 more expensive than a sticker for a passenger car. Requiring pickup truck drivers to get an extra sticker from the alderman's office poses an unnecessary inconvenience, Lopez said.
"My own personal experience has been that this secondary process aggravates my constituents who are truck owners," he said. "They already pay a premium on the city sticker."
Hernandez and Lopez said their ward offices give out hundreds of pickup truck permits a year, and requests for these stickers create extra work for the offices to verify the trucks are eligible.
"People are coming in claiming their vehicles weigh X amount," Hernandez said. "We're sending interns out to look at vehicles to inspect them. ... We're not the city clerk's office."
jkuang@chicagotribune.com
