You should read about the Chicago Parking Meters scandal. The City of Chicago leased all their meter rights to a private corporation on a 75 year lease for a bit over a billion dollars. The private company made it back in the first decade. The city even has to pay the parking company when they have to do construction or throw events that blocks the parking as revenue compensation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters

This doesn't apply to private pay lots though, so there's still some amount of "choice".

Sometimes I think, it should be illegal for these government contracts to last beyond 5 years for exactly this reason. Who know what kind of deals are being made. Some administration could sign away the whole country on their last day.

It's straight up corruption, pure and simple. The UK is also full of this crap. The officials and executives who've facilitated and profited from this robbery should be jailed.

So, the officials that signed that deal went to jail, right?

LOL. All the city parking spots around here are managed by PayByPhone, and pretty much all private parking spots are DiamondParking paid through ParkMobile.

I raised the issue with my local city council rep. She didn't care.

I don’t think a monopoly requires literally every possible option to be controlled by the monopolistic entity.

Also, I only have time for so many hills on which to die. I’m not sure parking reform, while worthy, makes the cut.