moving to chicago, never been there before!

[Manigault]

On the other hand, I consider Chicago car friendly. Who would not expect to get a ticket for an expired tag? I've experienced other big cities and no where else was it really feasible to drive downtown to work everyday, which I sometimes do. Parking is hard on the north side, but I live on the south side. I used to think that finding a space within two blocks of my apartment was wonderful -- now I am more questioning, I don't want to walk more than half a block. If I come in at 2 am on a weeknight I may have to walk those two blocks to get a space.

I've seen alternate side of the street parking in NYC and it is bizarre compared to Chicago's seasonal street cleaning. When they are repairing the sewers or the curbs, there are signs up ahead of time and I hear a city truck blaring about 7 am to move the cars. In a snow emergency they may tow your car off a through street, but only a block away. Just go look for it. What a city!
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Let me give you a little historical perspective on the ticket issue. Yes, three parking tickets gets you boot eligible, computer records are used to boot you even if you are parked legally and one has to pay up to get the boot removed. Fifteen years ago no one paid parking tickets. You were considered a fool to do so and there were many folks who had three and four thousand dollars in unpaid fines. The city just never caught up with you. I didn't buy a city sticker for about three years because I worked in the burbs and I garaged my car at night and never parked on the street. When was I gonna get caught? Now things are changed. Even if you avoid getting caught witout a city sticker, when you eventually buy one you have to become current and pay a late fee. Yes, the city gets a lot of parking fines revenue, but previously the city just didn't collect it. I've had the intersection cameras go off on me but I didn't even get a ticket in the mail. If you do get a camera ticket, its not counted like a regular moving violation.

Plus, there's no hills to worry about in the winter. Yes, you're not supposed to park a pickup on the street or have tinted windows. Read the DMV pamphlet. Ignoratia legis nominem excusat. Personally, I find Chicago to be a car driver's city. Just stay off the Dan Ryan for the next two years.

[jessiegirl_98]

Well, Dover, I will conceed that I have never heard of the "for sale" sign law, but the rest are laws in Illinois. For large metro cities, Chicago is car friendly. We are not New York or LA where driving/parking is impossible. If you live downtown, right, it is a pain. You can pay $150 in other neighborhoods for parking. You can also pay in meters. This is something you can weigh when you move (how much is parking in my area and is it worth it). Also, when I say that I don't pay for parking downtown, I am a child therapist at a low income hospital, so no, I don't have the luxury of an "employer" or "clients" paying. I park at meters, so may it's $1 and free after 6. Just park towards ontario off 90/94 and 99% of the time you can get great parking.
So, if you are used to smaller cities, traffic, parking, etc, will seem horrible. Coming from Miami, or any other big city, Chicago really is reasonable. I pay $75 in total for my city sticker, have never gotten a ticket, and generally maybe pay $5/every 2 weeks in meters. I agree, bottom line- If you don't want to drive, you don't have to (I have many friends that don't), but if you are like me and want to have a car (I work in a really unsafe neighborhood, and honestly, hate the el), compared to other big cities, it really isn't bad.

[Drover]

So like I said, you do most of your parking downtown after meter enforcement ends and after many people have headed home leaving metered spaces open. That's nice, but 99% of those who work downtown do so during normal business hours when meters are enforced with impunity and almost all are already occupied. And we've gone from "I've never paid for parking downtown" to "wait, I have to pay to park downtown after all, even if it's less than what most people who work normal hours would have to pay." If you were actually interested in providing accurate information, you'd have noted that your situation is different than what most people will encounter while trying to park downtown and you wouldn't have lied about it in the first place.

Oh, and thanks for the lecture about following Illinois law. When I was ticketed (twice) for a broken taillight, it was because of a hit-and-run. I was ticketed before I ever even had the chance to know my car had been hit. Sorry I wasn't omnipotent enough to know my car had been hit and consequently hadn't tried get an appointment right away at 2am (or whenever the hell it was hit) to get it fixed -- that's my bad, I'm such a thoughtless lawbreaker, so let's just go ahead and pile on the tickets until I can get the car into the shop. Appealed the tickets, they said "tough sh*t, it was broken so technically you were in violation of the law." Really improves one's respect for authority around here. Jurisdictions interested in fairness and safety instead of just revenue generation issue fix-it tickets for equipment violations. But that's not what they do here because that wouldn't bring in nearly as much money. My neighbor across the street just got a ticket for tinted windows on his car which had DOT-approved factory tint. He'll probably win on appeal, but the point is he shouldn't even have to waste his time. An officer who can't tell the difference between legal factory tint and non-conforming aftermarket tint has no business issuing a ticket for the offense in the first place. It might have helped if he had actually issued the ticket in the daytime when it was light out so that he could, you know, actually get an idea how much light passes through the windows.

I'll give the police credit for telling one of my neighbors to get lost when she tried to have me ticketed for blocking my own driveway.

[preppyboyofIL]

Hi all,

As you may have seen I also posted a thread about how long it takes to drive from Miami to Chicago

Well yes my boyfriend landed a major job deal there, and we get an appartment for an entire year rent free, so housing is not an issue fortunately.The weather (the cold) also doesn't concern us, as we have plenty cold gear since we lived in Switzerland previously.

So here are some questions I have :

How expensive is Chicago?

How effective is public transportation? if effective are there monthly passes you suggest?

Do you need a car? How expensive is gas?

We are both in our early 20's, what is the social life like?

Any information we could receive would be greatly appreciated.



Well first I would like to start off by saying you are making a wise decision, Chicago is a nice place to live for those who are looking for that New York style of living, without the enormous price tag.

As for expense... Chicago is moderately priced. $300,000 will give you a average style brick house with a basement in the city, and out in the southwest suburbs, it can tend to buy you a newer home that doesn't need as much renovations and updating. Taxes in IL tend to be on the high side verses surrounding states; property taxes in the city on an average style house will run between $5-8K a year and in the burbs tend to be between $3.5-7K on average, but that buys you great schools, parks, and things like excellent police and fire rescue.

Illinois is one of the few states that are still relatively affordable to license a vehicle per year running at $78 per year per vehicle, however be on the lookout in certain neighborhoods which require the purchase of a "vehicle sticker". Vehicle stickers, much like license plate stickers, are required to be renewed yearly or semi-yearly in some areas of the metro area and in the entire city of Chicago to allow one to have a vehicle in the city in which you live. Vehicles without these little windshield pocket book robbers will earn a nice $50 ticket for not having one, plus you will have to buy the sticker and pay a late fee for not having one.

Think you need a car??? Depending on where you live you may. Downtown proper is layed out much as New York's bourough of Manhattan is making it easy to get around on foot or via cab/bus and more of an inconvienence to have a car. The suburbs however have been layed out with the idea of the automobile in mind spreading stores and restaurants apart from eachother making it difficult to get around without a car. In my opinion, get a car and pay the $3.50 a gallon in gas costs.

Be ready for Chicago's weather... Winters can either be blah, bland, and boring with a wide array of cloudy, cloudy, and cloudy, or can be brutally cold. Icy winds off the lake in the late winter months (Jan 20-March 20) provide for a damp chill in the air which helps create more clouds. Decades ago Chicago earned a reputation for being a "snowy city", however with climate change in recent decades, this has become an obsolete observation of our city, as temperatures typically hover during the day time in the upper 30's - low 40's from December through early April therefore allow much of the precipitation to fall as rain. Springs are rather non-existant in the areas within 40 miles of Lake Michigan due to continual lake cooled winds blowing off the 40 degree water between March and mid-May thereby reducing temperatures some 20 degrees from that of areas west of Joliet and Aurora. Summers can tend to get hot with warm humid air pushing in from the Gulf of Mexico and over the past decade, have proved to be rather sunny lacking any rain. Falls, are the most pleasent season in Chicago to most residents, as lake water temperatures have warmed at this point to the mid 70's therefore allowing winds to blow out of any direction without creating drastic temperature drops and heavy overcast. Falls tend to produce a wide array of temperatures from hot and humid in the month of Septemer to cool and damp in November. Chicago typically will see it's first frost somewhere around Oct. 15 and first snowfall shortly after Halloween.

Social life in Chicago is good, Chicago provides ample entertainment for everyone much like the larger city of New York which Chicago has seemed to be modeled after does. Whether it be enjoying a hot summer day at the beach, or enjoying the indoors seeing the sites of prehistoric times at the Field Museum on one of those winter days, or an evening out dining at one of Chicago's 10,000 fine restaurants, Chicago has something for everyone.

Good luck!

[jessiegirl_98]

I don't understand the fighting. I tried to post about what my opinion was for parking, got a rude reponse. Tried to defend what I said, and get called a "liar." Wow. I'd hate to have someone moving here try to think that people in Chicago really are rude. This has gotten out of hand and is absolutely ridiculous. Here it is: If you want to drive/park, you can, much easier than most big cities of comparable size. If you will be irritated by it all the time, you can take public transportation. That's pretty much the bottom line. I was not trying to be rude or defensive, and don't understand the attitude. Just agree to disagree. I think we're all here to provide individuals with information and to help.

[NSH]

Originally Posted by jessiegirl_98

I don't understand the fighting. I tried to post about what my opinion was for parking, got a rude reponse. Tried to defend what I said, and get called a "liar." Wow. I'd hate to have someone moving here try to think that people in Chicago really are rude. This has gotten out of hand and is absolutely ridiculous. Here it is: If you want to drive/park, you can, much easier than most big cities of comparable size. If you will be irritated by it all the time, you can take public transportation. That's pretty much the bottom line. I was not trying to be rude or defensive, and don't understand the attitude. Just agree to disagree. I think we're all here to provide individuals with information and to help.

Don't mind the others, they are stuck in traffic all day, smog poisoning , I can definitely agree with you about parking. I have lived in the city of Chicago my whole life and have never had to search for a parking spot in front of any house I have lived in. If someone chooses to live in a hyper-dense neighborhood with poor parking they can do that, if someone chooses to live in an area of less density they can do that too, that is the beautiful thing about Chicago, you have choices.

[jdiddy]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you live in a dense area where parking and the non-stop street sweeping tickets are a pain, get rid of the car and sign up with zip car.

8 bucks an hour to rent a car. You don't have to pay insurance, $4/gallon of gas, $50 street cleaning tickets every month. And you probably won't have to walk any farther to pick one up then where you'd usually end up parking anyway.