Night try: Cubs make proposal

October 22, 2003

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

The Cubs have offered to create a $1 million fund to address neighborhood concerns, provide at least one year of free remote parking and extend shuttle-bus service to weekend games in exchange for permission to phase in 12 more night games at Wrigley Field.

To sweeten the pot, the team is offering to spend $48,000 on three traffic message boards around Wrigley and contribute $100,000 toward an engineering study that could pave the way for construction of a permanent Addison Street entrance ramp to Lake Shore Drive.

The Cubs also would supplement the city's refuse collection efforts by emptying public trash cans on major streets used by their fans in an extended area bounded by Ravenswood, Buena, Halsted and Belmont.

As night games are added to the schedule -- at a rate of four per season -- an identical number of 2:20 p.m. Friday games would be phased out. By 2006, late starts that run smack into the middle of rush hour would be totally eliminated.

Cubs president Andy MacPhail said he has no idea whether the team's offer would be enough to nail down an elusive agreement on more night games.

The new wrinkle is Mayor Daley's demand that major venues such as Wrigley reimburse the city for traffic-control costs at an hourly rate of $25 per traffic-control aide.

"We've been involved in extended negotiations with our neighbors stretching out almost three years now,'' MacPhail said. "We've made a great deal of progress and would hope to finalize an agreement commencing with the 2004 season.

"We have no details, at present, as to what the city contemplates with a traffic-control tax. We are unable to ascertain its impact on us or the progress we've made with our neighbors.''

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) said the Cubs' offer was well-received by community leaders Tuesday.

"The community felt that the Cubs did a pretty good job and met the community's needs halfway,'' Tunney said. "The question now is, what is the city going to do? The city has not committed its financial resources. That's what the community has asked.''

Lisa Schrader, a spokeswoman for the Office of Budget and Management, said the Daley administration still was studying the Cubs' proposal.

The offer of at least one year of free remote parking is designed to bolster use of a failed shuttle-bus system initiated in 1998 to mitigate the effects of night baseball.

Although the remote lot at DeVry University, 3300 N. Campbell, provides off-street parking for 1,000 vehicles, an average of only 174 vehicles per game park there, and only 451 fans -- 1.5 percent of the average crowd -- ride the express shuttle, according to a February 2002 report by a Cubs consultant. That's an 80 percent decline in shuttle-bus use since lights were installed at Wrigley.

Under the proposed agreement, remote parking would be free for the entire 2004 season, with weekend service continuing for two hours after the game to ease traffic congestion and encourage fans to patronize local restaurants.

In 2005, the Cubs would be free to charge only if the lot averages at least 500 vehicles per game in the prior year. The benchmark would climb to 750 vehicles per game in 2005 and 1,000 in subsequent years.

Contributions to the $1 million CubFund would be made at a rate of $67,000 per year for the duration of the 15-year agreement.

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