The municipality, which is adjacent to O’Hare International Airport, has pushed for a significant increase in fines for illegal night parking of trucks.
Elk Grove Village has about 32,000 residents. Its eastern edge is adjacent to the northwest corner of O’Hara. And with a significant industrial presence in the city, fueled in part by proximity to O’Hara, the village felt it needed to take stronger action against what it considered excessive truck parking for the night.
Village authorities did not answer several phone calls from FreightWaves. But the police chief told local media that the changes, which took effect on May 6, were necessary in light of reports of an increase in night parking.
“We want to be friendly in business during the day, but at night, when the factories are closed, there is no reason for the streets to be filled,” police chief Chuck Walsh was quoted as saying. The Daily Heralda newspaper covering the Chicago suburbs.
The village council agreed to Walsh’s request to increase the minimum fine for one offense from $ 30 to $ 300. The fine will be charged for illegal parking in areas of the city after 22:00. According to The Daily Herald, parking is prohibited from 7pm to 7am, but the grace period means that higher fines will not be imposed on truckers just after that. 10 p.m.
The maximum fine that can be charged is $ 750. It was not immediately clear what the maximum fine was before the change.
The village has a prohibition of all parking on the streets of the village between 2 and 5 p.m.
Matt Hart, executive director of the Illinois Trucking Association, described the Village Elk Grove as “one of the largest transportation areas in the state” because of its proximity to the airport.
He said the location of the airport near O’Hare has made the city a key area for warehousing operations. “In fact, it is not surprising that today, with such high demands on the trucking industry, we will see that many truck drivers are just looking for a place to park safely.”
Hart said his organization had not contacted Elk Grove village police or the village council when it was moving toward approving higher fines.
But he said that among the steps taken by the Illinois area, frustrated by the number of truck stops on local streets, “this is the most excessive I’ve heard of.”
Other settlements are “doing their best to prevent truck parking,” Walsh said. “But by and large, most local governments understand how difficult it is to work in this area.”
In the newspaper about the increase in fines, Walsh said that between 7 and 22 o’clock the police will tell the drivers to “move” before heavier fines are imposed.
In the article, Walsh cited a very specific time when the situation with parking in the village of Elk-Grove began to deteriorate: nine months ago. However, he did not name the reasons why the situation has worsened since last year.
As an alternative, Walsh cited the availability of truck parking at the Love’s Travel stop in the village of Elk Grove, located on Busse Road.
But recently the Trucker Path app announced the results of a survey regarding the availability of truck parking in different regions of the country. Asked to provide information on parking at this particular Love’s, a Trucker Path spokeswoman declined, but made the following statement: “According to Trucker, the availability of stops in this Illinois region seems to be lower than the national average. Community of drivers.
According to the spokesperson, the information on truck parking in the Trucker Path app is based on “real-time input from more than 1 million drivers using the Trucker Path app”.
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https://www.freightwaves.com/news/illinois-town-near-ohare-sharply-boosts-fines-for-illegal-overnight-truck-parking
