Right now Austin is trying some very dubious eminent domain measures (which were pretty drastically clobbered in court) to get out of a long term lease they signed just a few years ago to have a private operator run a small separate terminal at the airport. I think it was especially braindead for Austin to ever sign that lease - we were (and still are) growing like crazy, it didn't take much foresight to think Austin would eventually need to seriously expand the airport.
Of course, hardly anyone involved with the original bad decision is still on city council, so it became someone else's problem.
This is around the same time that PA tried to lease their turnpike, and cities all over the US were facing a post-boom hangover when projected revenues from permits and property taxes didn't align with budget realities.
I'm not defending the decision, but it was far more shortsightedness than corruption.
That deal fell apart; it was never completed.
But Chicago did lease the parking garage underneath Millennium Park to the same parking meter investor group. And that deal went bankrupt with the lease going back to the lender (who set up a new consortium which is also on the verge of bankruptcy).
So basically the two parking deals have just now broken even ;)
> Amid a legal skirmish with the city over the underground parking garages, the venture is in talks to relinquish them to banking giant Societe Generale S.A., which provided a $403 million loan to finance the 2006 deal, sources said. It's a sign that the investment has lost so much value with little prospect of a turnaround that the venture no longer sees a reason to own it.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130912/CRED03/1309...
> Chicago CFO Gene Saffold said the Midway Investment and Development Company, the group that successfully bid on the 99-year airport lease in September, was unable to secure financing, leading to the deal’s demise.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chicago-midway-lease-idUS...
Democracies often force short sighted thinking because of
1. Frequent elections
2. Situations outside of your control but you are blamed by the public or attacked by the opposition for
3. Voters who may have nostalgia, emotions, and or a bad memory
It clearly said it was in Chicago and involved a Daley.
The company doesn't actually control the prices. See https://parkchicago.com/about/
> The City Of Chicago retains control over pay station parking rates. CPM does not – and never has – set pay station parking rates. The City retains exclusive authority to determine and establish rates, set hours of operation, and place, add or remove metered spaces. The initial five‐year rate schedule, which ended in 2013, was approved by the City Council to align with rates comparable with other large U.S. cities. Prior to the agreement, parking rates in Chicago were much lower than the national average. Seventy percent of meters had not seen an increase in 20 years.
Oulu is at least as cold as Chicago and has twice as much snowfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulu#Climate vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago#Climate . I'm not saying that _you_ would wish to cycle in December but making it practicable for many is a choice, as Oulu shows.
Either way, cars are inherently less space efficient than bikes, because they occupy so much more road space per passenger.
That must be a very big car, or very tiny tightly packed bikes?
At 7x2.5m I can imagine 10 bicycles side-by-side with ~70cm each, with another 10 'interleaved' opposite.