Free parking in Lincoln Park?
 

My daughter just moved to Chicago. She lives downtown on LaSalle in the business district. The parking garage next to her building charges $22 per day. We are going up and flying out of Chicago with her on a 10 day vacation. She tells us that we should drive the van to Lincoln Park where we can park the van for free. I'm a little leery of this. Can we indeed park a van there and leave it unmoved for 10 days?

You are right to be leery. Most of Lincoln Park is zoned, so you can't park overnight without a zone sticker. If you find an area that isn't, you also have to make sure there isn't street cleaning coming up.

You'd be cheaper to drive the van to ORD and park there for cheaper.

Lots of places to park free, especially if you are looking for a spot late at night. In Lincoln Park proper, it is not likely. But you can try the neighborhood south of North Ave and East of Clybourn. Most of these streets are "permit only" on only one side of the street. And the streets 1-2 blocks west of Halsted between North and Division.

And if it is a real nice car, I'd be more careful about where you put it (lighted, etc.) Leaving it 10 days? I'd park it in a real good, safe neighborhood where there is no theft. :) Does it exist? Perhaps someone with time on their hands can look through everyblock.com - http://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/ - and find a spot where no one steals cars. In front of a police station or in front of 3536 S. Lowe Avenue might do the trick! :)

But you must be aware of street cleaning schedules. Link: http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en..._sweeping.html

-

It is theoretically possible to leave your car on a non-zoned Chicago street, but only if you remove the "Lincoln Park" from possible parking locations...South of North Ave and W. of Clybourn is not Lincoln Park. While I would suggest one of the hotels or other official or unofficial lots near O'Hare that cater to long-term parkers rather than trying to leave your car on a city street, in addition to cleaning schedules (which thwart local residents regularly) you can look up addresses to see if they are zoned -- and therefore not available for your scheme -- at the following Link:
http://www.chicityclerk.com/resident...ing/index.html
and click on residential zone lookup.

Check out Galewood neighborhood if you are committed to this plan (lots closer to ORD than the Mayor's former block!), but then you would have to cross North Avenue into Oak Park and call Blue Cab from there...I can't seriously suggest this idea.

Drive 45 minutes south and park in my driveway for $5 a day.

I just repread the original post and I missed the fact that they were leaving Chicago out of ORD, I guess I only read the part about the daughter living on LaSalle and them visiting. Sorry 'bout that.

Long term parking at Ohare.

If must in Lincoln Park, have one of her friends in Lincoln Park with Zoned parking get your zoned parking stickers for the duration of the trip

This could be difficult. Technically a car can have 1 sticker which is good for one day. I see cars with 2 or 3 stickers and they seem to get away with it. I am not so sure 10 stickers would fly.

Fairly close to "LaSalle in the business district", there is a long stretch of Wells from Polk South to Roosevelt that is unzoned and unmetered on the EAST side of the street. This generally fills up during workdays as savvy parkers have found it, but if you're looking for a place in the early evening as people begin to leave or on the weekend you should be OK in terms of finding a space.

There are also several surface lots in this area that charge between $7.50 and $8.00 per day, and I'll bet you could swing a deal if you chatted them up a bit. Try on Clark south of Harrison and then the lots on Polk West of Clark. The lots on Clark Street have the advantage of being only a block or so from the LaSalle Blue Line stop, which takes one right to O'Hare.

Your daughter is actually correct. It is an open secret to people living in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that parking in Lincoln Park itself is free and not permit restricted; to be specific, long stretches of Stockton and Cannon Drives. Unfortunately, since it is an open secret, pretty much everyone in the area tries to take advantage of it. It is almost impossible to find a spot unless you spend a half-hour driving up and down the streets waiting for someone to pull out.

Even if you find a spot, you have to watch for street cleaning, possible car burglary, and overstaying as pointed out by previous posts. It would be impossible to leave your car there for 10 days without running afoul with Streets & Sanitation or the police.

Cannon has rush hour restrictions, so it won't work for parking a full weekday.

Multiple stickers
 

I've seen cars with 7-10 stickers on them. Residents that come to Chicago late in the year might find that the cost of buying a City Stickers/Permanent permits will cost far more than simply buying a few books of temporary parking permit books. It seems to me that the parking ticket writers don't mind the fact that cars have multiple stickers on them as I have never seen someone ticketed for displaying too many stickers.

One could argue that from a security perspective, displaying that may stickers publicly announces that you are not intending on checking up on the car for an extended period of time. It might be an indicator to an thief.

There are an abundance of side streets in Ukrainian Village (~Chicago and Ashland), West Loop, and South Loop (particularily south of Cermak Avenue on Wabash and Michigan Avenues) that are un zoned, un metered, and have no rush hour restrictions. Park there and take a cab or public transportation to your daughters home in the financial district.

Two thoughts:
1. You can only buy stickers/permits if you reside in a neighborhood. So someone new to Chicago who lives downtown couldn't buy Lincoln Park daily permits.
2. When I see a car with multiple daily permits, I assume they haven't bothered to pull off old permits when adding a new daily permit. Are you sure you're seeing cars with daily permits for days in the future?

I have definitely walked by cars with 7-10 permits on them, checked them, and saw that "today" was in the middle of the range.

Like others have said, I don't think I'd do that, it's advertising to a thief that you're not checking your car.

Best to pay for the long-term parking at O'Hare and call it a day

Wabash or Michigan, South of Cermak is walking distance to the Red Line and several buses.

FWIW, it's also walking distance to at least two different housing projects.

1. You might be able to find someone in the neighborhood that could be helpful in lending a hand and giving out some of the Lincoln Park zone permits

2. Yes, I have checked the dates, and they are for consecutive days. From what I can recall it's illegal to drive with obstructions in your window. A car displaying 7-10 permits would more than likely be in violation of this law.

Protip: The adhesive on the parking permits for this year tends to leave a paper/glue residue behind when removed. I usually make sure the permit is firmly wedged in between the window and dash and I skip putting the sticker directly on the window using the adhesive backing.

This is false.

Lincoln Avenue, for example from Armitage to Webster is NOT zoned. Armitage, for example is NOT zoned from Sedgewick to Larabee (maybe even Halsted).

There are plenty of "boulevards" in these neighborhoods that are not zoned parking.

Dave

Or drive an hour west and park on my property for $4.75 a day.

:D