Illinois Making Big Money On Parking Tickets In 2021

In 2021, the state of Illinois is making big money on parking tickets.

Difficult To Park In Illinois Cities

Is it just me or has it gotten more difficult to find free parking in Illinois cities? It does not matter if you are in Rockford, Chicago, Naperville, or some other crowded area, it is just a pain. There is so many "permit only" or "time-limited" spots, it is likely you will come back with a ticket placed on your windshield.

Parking Ticket In Downtown Rockford

There are a few places in downtown Rockford that I enjoy meeting friends for lunch. Well, during the weekdays there is a lot of reserved parking spots in the city, so you really have to be careful where you park. I thought I was in a safe spot, but unfortunately, I was not and received a ticket.

Parking Tickets Are Back In Illinois

Honestly, parking tickets never really went away in Illinois. They were just not enforced during the COVID quarantine. The state and its cities wanted to give residents a break if they were experiencing financial hardships during that time. Also, many people were working from home, so the opportunity for officials to write tickets decreased dramatically.

Making Up For Lost Money

Of course, the Illinois government lost lots of money during that time period and they are attempting to make up for lost time and cash. In typical fashion, trying to milk every last dollar out of us. A quick fix is giving out more parking tickets.

Parking Tickets By The Numbers

Some of the statistics were recently released for parking tickets in Chicago and as we all know, how the Windy City goes, so goes the whole state.

According to chicago.suntimes.com

As of June 30th, 2021...

• Increase of 71%

• 853,906 parking tickets

• 27,656 cars booted (29,925 total in 2020)

"Chicago is making up for lost time to recoup pandemic-related losses in booting and ticketing, two of Chicago’s biggest revenue generators."

 

“It looks like we have more people that have been ticketed and booted in the first six months of this year than all of last year."

 

"Chicago would rake in $68 million in additional revenue in 2021 from “enhanced fine enforcement initiatives.”

It's like real-life Parking Wars out there, so please be careful where you park.