No More Paying To Park At Oak Forest's Metra Lots: City

OAK FOREST, IL — Metra commuters in Oak Forest will get a nice break, after a move by City Council Tuesday nixed daily parking fees at the city's five Metra parking lots.

The elimination of the fees is effective immediately, the City said. .

"We have seen a downward trend in parking usage at all of our lots since 2012 when data first became available," said City Administrator Tim Kristin. "The most significant drop occurred in 2021 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which was the impetus for more people working from home."

Kristin said the city’s collection system is antiquated and costly in both time and resources. Recently, the deteriorating payboxes have been vandalized and burglarized—requiring police officers to respond to the incidents and public works staff to repair the boxes. The estimated cost to replace 12 payboxes is $60,000.

"There are limited replacement options for these types of boxes," Kristin said. "Although we do our best to maintain them, there are too many functional and structural issues to preserve them in the long run."

In terms of the collection process, Oak Forest police officers spend a minimum of one hour per day collecting the funds from the payboxes. They bring the funds to City Hall where the counter clerks spend an estimated five hours per week sorting coins and unfurling cash to deliver to the bank.

"The collection process is labor-intensive,” Kristin explained. “It’s really not the best use of our time or resources.”

Before deciding to eliminate parking fees, staff researched alternative collection systems, including electronic payment options, the City said in a release. After a thorough analysis, it was determined that an electronic payment system would expend 60 percent of the existing $1.25 daily parking fee. Ultimately, to upgrade the system, the city would need to increase the parking fee to at least $2 per day.

"Eliminating the daily fee will not have a significant impact on our bottom line," said Kristin. "In fact, we believe free parking will lead to more commuters and more foot traffic in our Gateway Development area, which will benefit our commercial corridors—attracting more development opportunities."