Get rid of parking mandates that keep Chicago car-centric

Currently, if you want to construct certain new housing or a new business in Chicago, you must also build a minimum number of new parking spaces, even when it’s unlikely or unexpected for the tenants and customers to use the parking.

This policy of mandating parking makes housing in Chicago more expensive, harms our environment, and makes new development more difficult. Chicago should join other cities like Minneapolis, Buffalo, and Austin, and end parking mandates.

Parking mandates are made worse by an expensive (and often secretive) system of exceptions, exemptions, and aldermanic prerogative.

Parking mandates make it more expensive to build new housing and businesses. Chicago is experiencing a housing crisis, and affordable housing is rare. Parking mandates make the problem worse. Parking garages cost $15,000-$30,000 per space, a cost that is passed on to homeowners, renters, and shoppers. Researchers have found that requiring garage parking raises rent by 17% on average.

Further, parking mandates lock Chicago into a car-centric future, during a period when we urgently need to invest in fast, safe, and convenient public transportation. Mayor Brandon Johnson and the city council acknowledged that Chicago is experiencing a climate emergency, and cars are the primary way individuals contribute to air pollution. Similarly, in recent years Chicago has seen high numbers of automobile injuries and fatalities. Chicago should encourage safe public transportation, instead of dedicating more space for car infrastructure.

Finally, parking mandates are confusing and, in many parts of the city, redundant. Nearly half of Chicago already has reduced parking requirements, due to the 2022 Chicago Connected Communities Ordinance. Chicago should finish the job and remove parking mandates citywide.

If people buying new homes or building new buildings want parking, then developers can build whatever amount of parking tenants and customers demand. But the policy of requiring parking minimums with new construction is outdated, wasteful, and backward.

Peter Snyder, member, Urban Environmentalists Illinois, Printers Row

Paying for a winning team

Jerry Reinsdorf and the McCaskeys can get everything they desire in their new stadiums. Fund the projects themselves, put a competitive team on the field, and the fans will willingly pay for the tickets.

John Powers, Rolling Meadows/Ft. Myers, Florida

Courage to enforce laws

Why are any of us surprised the Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment won’t be enforced against Donald Trump to keep him off the 2024 ballot?

Many times it takes courage to enforce our nation’s rules. And many times we fail to show that courage. After all, the 15th Amendment guaranteeing Black men, and later the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women (including Black women), the right to vote, was not enforced in many places in the South for Black people between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

We think of our Constitution as something sacred but it takes courage to enforce it. The Supreme Court has showed a lack of courage.

What occurred on Jan. 6, 2021 was an attempted insurrection. The 2020 election had been decided, more than 60 courts, including the Supreme Court, had ruled against Trump, and the Electoral College had voted Joe Biden the winner. Imagine how Republicans would have reacted if the roles had been reversed and Democrats had pulled the same stunts.

Too many of us no longer care about fairness. Donald Trump never did.

Kevin Coughlin, Evanston