Upgrades coming at Libertyville train stations

Commuters who use the two Libertyville commuter train stations at Prairie Crossing soon can choose to stop stuffing money into slots for daily fee parking.

Village workers also will be able to forego the blowtorch to thaw frozen fee boxes following recent action by the village board to buy five new machines to serve the North Central and Milwaukee North stations just west of Route 137.

The new equipment will replace two mail box-type pay stations and will have the ability to accept credit card payment for the daily parking fee. At some point, the village also will activate an option that will allow commuters to pay via cellphone application.

“You an insert cash or pay by credit. It will also provide a receipt, which we don’t have the option of doing,” said Kelly Amidei, assistant village administrator.

The village late last year put out a request for proposals for equipment to upgrade user friendliness, ease maintenance and improve collection and enforcement.

Four proposals were received. Total Parking Solutions Inc. of Downers Grove was chosen to provide and install the new equipment, remove the old and train staff at a cost of $63,000.

“We’re going from really archaic to really advanced in one step — take advantage of the technology,” Amidei said.

Libertyville owns and maintains both lots, which have spaces for several hundred cars. About 230 cars use the lots in a given day, Amidei estimated.

Parking fees go into a special revenue fund for commuter parking that is legally restricted to those uses. She said the old equipment at times presents challenges.

“They freeze up and we have to go out with a blowtorch to open it,” she said.

The downtown commuter station will not be affected. The majority of spaces there are for permit parking only. In the main lot west of Milwaukee Avenue, only 10 daily fee spaces are available, and those are for residents only.

The village has plans to enlarge the downtown lot but it is dependent on the development of land to the west, which is on hold.

Amidei said Total Parking Solutions has 60 days to order the equipment, and anticipated it would be installed and operational in about three months.

“We want to let people know we’re working on it,” she said.”