Mayor Rahm Emanuel has worked to lock the parking meter privatization in place

After winning the mayor’s office on a promise of reform, Rahm Emanuel vowed to rework or undo the city’s parking meter privatization deal, one of the enduring legacies of the insider politics of the Daley era.

“I have people on the transition—and more than a person—working on this,” Emanuel said. “I have some ideas and we’re exploring them.”

Two years later the City Council is scheduled to take up the result of those explorations—a revised meter agreement forged by Emanuel’s staff. But far from scotching or significantly retooling the deal, the new agreement would essentially kill the possibility of meaningful changes for the next seven decades.