Jose Gonzalez and his wife drove around the Montrose and Foster beach parking lots for almost 30 minutes Saturday morning looking for a spot.
They eventually settled for a smaller, much emptier paid lot at Foster Beach.
And there’s no skirting the payment, like some may have done in years past.
The Chicago Park District has installed new automated gates and license plate readers to enforce paid parking in lots at 10 beaches across the city.
“Just drive in,” read the new signs at the beach entrances.
Instructions for how to pay by phone are posted in the parking lots. It includes a QR code to scan, which brings you to the Metropolis parking company’s website, where drivers are prompted to enter their phone number, license plate number and credit card information. Drivers are automatically charged when they exit through the gate. Cash payments aren’t accepted.
“You should not be paying for parking because a lot of people are losing money,” said Gonzalez, who thinks public access to the beach, no matter which mode of transportation, should be free.
Gonzalez, 59, was at Foster Beach in Edgewater on Saturday for an early Mother’s Day celebration with his wife, their three kids and four grandchildren. They planned to be there for around five hours, which would put his parking payment at $15.25.
“I already pay taxes. … Where is all that money going? You go out [to the suburbs], like Evanston, you don’t pay in Evanston. Skokie, you go to the parks, you don’t pay. So, I think I’m overpaying for parking,” Gonzalez, of Rogers Park, said.
Parking revenue from city parks goes to “directly support parks and park programming citywide,” a park district spokesperson said.
Isaiah Steinberg, 21, who visited Foster Beach on Saturday to walk and run the lakefront trail with his mother, can understand paying a small fee to go toward maintaining the parks and beaches.
“Without the gates, I definitely would not have known that I had to pay for parking,” said Steinberg, a student at Northwestern University. “With the gates there, I assumed that there would be a fee, so I was kind of looking for signs. And even without the sign there [at the entrance], given that there were gates, I probably would have looked for signs with instructions on how to pay for parking.”
“[The] parking process was pretty easy. Of course, free would be better, but I understand they gotta maintain the trail and stuff, so I think it’s worth it,” Steinberg added.
The park district projects all parking fees to generate $9.4 million in revenue this year, an increase from $8.9 million last year and $7.5 million in 2024, according to the park district’s budget. Parking expenses this year are also expected to slightly increase, from $1.5 million last year to $1.7 million.
Paid parking at city beaches isn’t new. Most lots have been paid lots since 2009. The new gates were installed in an effort to “simply modernize how payment is managed and enforced,” a park district spokesperson said.
The parking system allows visitors a free 15-minute grace period for pickup, drop-off or unloading supplies. After that, the fee applies. Parking rates have not increased, according to the park district.
Rates vary slightly by location, with fees around $4.07 for up to one hour and a maximum of $24 for vehicles parked longer than nine hours.
The new gated system has been installed at the following locations:
- Waveland Park
- Wilson Avenue and DuSable Lake Shore Drive
- Foster Beach
- 55th Street and South Shore Drive
- Oakwood and DuSable Lake Shore Drive
- Museum of Science and Industry — East and South lots
- Rainbow Beach —
North and South lots - 63rd Street Beach
- Diversey Driving Range
- North Avenue Beach, which was previously gated but was upgraded with the new gate technology.