Aurora increases parking fees at Metra stations in the city for first time in 10 years

The Aurora City Council has voted to increase parking prices at the city’s two Metra stations for the first time in 10 years.

Prices are set to go up from $2 per day or $42 for a monthly pass to $3 per day or $60 for a monthly pass starting in the new year. City officials have said the change will bring the prices in line with other parking along the BNSF-Metra rail line, in particular matching the daily rates of Naperville’s parking lots at Metra stations.

Both Naperville and Aurora have parking lots at the BNSF-Metra line station on Route 59, which borders the two cities. Aurora also has parking lots at the BNSF-Metra line station at the Aurora Transportation Center on North Broadway near the city’s downtown.

Aurora’s Transportation Center near downtown has three parking lots with 799 daily and 479 monthly permit parking spaces, while the Aurora-owned lot at the Metra station on Route 59 has 1,538 daily and 1,028 monthly parking spaces.

The city is responsible for maintenance to the two train stations, which is supposed to be financially self-sustaining through the collection of parking fees, Aurora Director of Public Facilities Derrick Winston previously told a committee of the Aurora City Council.

The parking fees at the stations hadn’t increased since 2015, he said at the Finance Committee meeting on Nov. 13.

Before 2020, the fees were enough to sustain operations at the train stations, but revenue dropped nearly to zero in spring 2020, Winston said at the time. While revenue has been returning since the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, it hasn’t risen much above half of what it was.

The city has continued to maintain those stations despite the drop in parking revenue, so it has needed to use reserve funds and to receive subsidies from other city funds, according to Winston. Even with Christkindlmarket bringing in $400,000 in parking revenue last year, the maintenance operations still needed to be subsidized, he said at the time.

The increased parking fees are set to rebuild those reserve funds and make operations financially self-sustaining again.

The topic didn’t prompt any discussion at the Aurora City Council meeting on Tuesday, and instead it went straight to a vote, with all aldermen in attendance voting in favor. Alds. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward, Patty Smith, 8th Ward, and Shweta Baid, 10th Ward, were not at the meeting so did not vote on the fee increases.

City officials have been saying for months that the city’s 2026 budget is facing its own significant deficit and that the city’s current financial situation is one of the most serious it has ever faced. The city’s proposed general operating budget for 2026 has seen significant cuts throughout the process, officials have said, and it includes around 140 fewer positions.

The Aurora City Council has recently approved other steps to increase or stabilize revenue in other parts of the city budget, including an increase to the city’s hotel tax, an increase in the number of gambling machines businesses are allowed to operate and the local continuation of a grocery tax set to otherwise expire statewide at the end of the year.

rsmith@chicagotribune.com