owning a car in chicago (Lincoln: insurance, home, suburbs)

[alixjack]

Hi.

I currently live in Orlando and I'm moving to Chicago in August with my husband.

He keeps telling me that it is really hard to have a car in Chicago because you have pay a lot to park it [even at home].

Is this true everywhere in Chicago? How much does that cost? I've been to the city a million times when I lived in Illinois as a teenager, but I've never had to deal with parking.

Thanks!

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

It really depends on the neighborhood. I park on the street. That's not hard in my 'hood. I pay higher insurance rates and have to buy a city sticker once a year (75 bucks), but otherwise have no real complaints.

Now, if you live in, say, East Lakeview or parts of Lincoln Park or the Gold Coast, Streeterville, the Loop, South Loop etc, you will probably have to pay for parking.

It really depends on the area.

[alwaystraveling25]

It really depends on where you are looking to live. If you want to live in East Lakeview/Gold Coast/Old Town, parking is awful. If you live in Rogers Park, it's not an issue.

Do you know where you are planning to live? It honestly varies by neighborhood. Parking by me is non-existent (there is off-street parking that is very rare to grab), but my friend that lives in Rogers Park at 6000N just street parks like you would do in any other city in the country.

Once you know what area you would like to move to (or if you already know), then we can tell you the specifics about the area!

You will love it here! One of my best friends moved here from Southern Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) and he went to school in Orlando and would never consider moving back to Florida, even with our winters!

[Drover]

There are parts of the city where people are willing to shell out up to $200 a month for an off-street parking space. Then there's neighborhoods like mine where, even right now at 2:30 am, you could park a school bus out there if you wanted to. And that's not an exaggeration -- you could literally park a school bus across the street from my place right now.

A pretty lengthy and somewhat heated discussion on the topic of car ownership in Chicago erupted in this thread.

[lisakf1]

I live a block from Wrigley and honestly it's not hard to park here at all. During the day there are tons of spots. As the evening draws near the spots get taken up, but even at 3 am, we were able to park directly in front of our building.

It's costs $75 for the city sticker and then $25 for the neighborhood sticker, so that's already $100. Then factor that my insurance increased 50% from moving to the city from TX.

[ChicagoRon]

All gave great answers thus far. The most important thing I would say is listen to what people are saying about it all depends on where you live. List what area/ neighborhood you live in and they can help you more.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by lisakf1

I live a block from Wrigley and honestly it's not hard to park here at all. During the day there are tons of spots. As the evening draws near the spots get taken up, but even at 3 am, we were able to park directly in front of our building.

It's costs $75 for the city sticker and then $25 for the neighborhood sticker, so that's already $100. Then factor that my insurance increased 50% from moving to the city from TX.

Glad to know you got everything squared away.

[katmoney]

I got lucky and paid $100 a month to park my car in a covered garage spot!! I also avoided having to purchase the city sticker or change my insurance to my Chicago zip code saving me about $800 a year (using my parents address in the suburbs).