Concerned about cost increases and privacy issues, dozens of commuters who use the Aurora Transportation Center parking lot have complained about a new automated system to buy parking permits.
One user, Tom Heaton of Batavia, asked the City Council last week to reconsider the system under which monthly fees automatically are deducted from a checking account or billed to a charge card for a $2-a-month surcharge.
The city told permit holders in a Nov. 7 letter that they must sign up for the new system by Monday or lose their permits.
There’s also a onetime fee of $5.95 to sign up via the Internet or an $8.95 fee to sign up via telephone.
Heaton expressed concern about identity theft, saying Santa Barbara, Calif.-based iParq.com requires the permit holder’s name, address, driver’s license number and either a bank account or credit card number.
“You’re putting together a package of highly personalized information,” said Heaton, a corporate financial services consultant. “It resides in a database for a long period of time. When you start putting together those kind of pieces, identity fraud is a whole heck of a lot easier.”
Phil Silagi, Aurora’s director of motor vehicle parking services, said monthly fees at the Transportation Center lot on Illinois Highway 31 have been increased twice in the last 15 years.
As of Jan. 1, those fees will change from $55 a quarter to $19 a month–an increase of about 67 cents a month, he said. Daily parking rates are $1.50 a day, so permits are a deal, he added.
On Illinois Highway 59, at the city’s other lot serving Metra’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe line, monthly fees will remain at $20 a month.
Naperville, which is considering using the iParq.com system, and Clarendon Hills each charge $20 a month for permits, while other towns along the Burlington line charge more, he said. “When you compare us to other cities, we are in line or less expensive,” he said.
He also called the $2-a-month surcharge a “minimal fee” that makes paying for a parking permit far easier than in the past, when checks had to be mailed in or taken to city offices.
“It saves us a significant amount of staff time,” he said. “All things considered, it works well for the commuters and the city.”
As to the issue of information security, he said the iParq.com Web site at thePermitStore.com is secure. Information is not shared with third parties, he said.
Customers who wish to pay in person can do so at a downtown city office, though they must pay a $4.95 monthly fee to do that.
Since announcing the program at the Transportation Center and boosting the surcharge at Illinois 59, the city has received fewer than 50 complaints, Silagi said.
