Jon Hilkevitch in Monday’s Tribune answers a question I have been dying to ask — what’s with these folks hanging around the new pay boxes that line the Lincoln Square and North Center streets these days.
Turns out the folks in the bright green T-shirts are temporary workers hired by LAZ Parking, the company managing Chicago’s privatization of on-street parking, and are around to help take flak from Chicago motorists upset about a rise in parking costs and a machine that now takes coins or credit cards — but no paper currency and gives motorists a receipt that they place on their dashboard.
Hilkevitch writes you will likely see the Pay Box Team “pacing and the leaning against the new parking pay boxes or against tree trunks or fences.”
“That’s because there is no sitting down on the job of educating the public about the brave new world of Chicago parking as the fee-collection machines replace meters. Violators of the no-sitting rule will be immediately fired, according to Green Team members, who told Getting Around they are under orders not to speak to the media, including even providing their names.”