Parking rates set to go up in Aurora

Aurora rail commuters will need to do some quick rebudgeting in the coming weeks as parking rates will nearly double at the city's two commuter lots on July 1.

No commuters spoke up and only two of the city's aldermen, both mayoral candidates in 2009, objected to raising monthly permit fees from $22 to $40 at the Route 59 commuter lot and from $21 to $30 at the Aurora Transportation Center on Broadway Avenue. Daily rates will remain $2 under the proposed ordinance amendments.

On an annual basis, monthly commuter customers will spend $480 annually compared to $264 at the Rt. 59 lot and $360 as opposed to the current $252 annual expense.

"How, in this day and age of rising gas prices, are we supposed to encourage the citizens of Aurora to take public transportation while we're doubling the rates they've been used to for a long time?" asked 3rd Ward Alderman Stephanie Kifowit. "I couldn't support that because it seems like a step in the wrong direction when we're encouraging folks to be green and take public transportation."

Parking facility officials have blamed the increase, the first since 1989, on rising maintenance and salary costs during the previous two decades.

The Route 59 lot now has 735 monthly permit spots and 600 daily spots. The city issues 1,000 monthly permits, however.

City officials said they hope that by bringing the monthly rates in line with the daily rates, the monthly permit demand will lessen. Daily parkers caught sneaking into a permit space also will feel the increase as their fines jump from $20 to $50 per violation.

Another factor, they said, is the Aug. 1 deadline when Naperville will increase its quarterly fees for the 1,164 permit spaces on its side of the Route 59 lot from $60 per quarter for residents to $90 per quarter. Those rates will jump again, on Nov. 1, to $120 per quarter, or $40 a month.

That reasoning didn't sit well with 4th Ward Alderman Rick Lawrence who also voted against the increase.

"I don't think there's a worse reason for doing something than to say 'We have to raise ours because they raised theirs,'" he said. "Who cares what they're doing? We should at least be cutting our Aurora residents a deal that would allow them to park there affordably and encouraging them to park there."