There are a gazillion cars in Rogers Park, and there’s no place to park them. That’s the declaration you would gather if you listen to “Lakefront Car Tower” (a parking garage) proponents, including the 49th ward alderman, Joe Moore.

The parking problem is so bad in Rogers Park that a parking garage at Sherwin Avenue and Sheridan Road that would provide less than 100 overnight parking spaces to the public was actually sent from Asphaltia, the god of car parks. It’s so bad that “[m]any car owners find themselves stuck in their home at night” – yes, the alderman really published that on his website – because they find a parking space on Friday night and can’t move the car until Monday morning. The horror of using your feet, pedals, the bus, the train, car sharing, paratransit, or a Segway!

(I’d love to get into parking pricing policy now, but I’ll just leave you with this: of course there is going to be a demand problem when the supply of publicly-owned on-street parking costs $0 per year.)

This post is actually a tutorial on how to use United States Census data to find how many cars are in the neighborhood of Rogers Park, not a laugh about Asphaltia’s teachings.

Let’s begin! Continue reading