How to get your car out of impound in Northwest Side

Inside the city, start with 311. Once you know which pound has it, the fees are published under Municipal Code 9-92-080: $250 to tow a vehicle under 8,000 pounds, $350 at 8,000 pounds or more, and $50 or $100 per day storage on the same split. Payment is cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express or Diners Club only, and the city does not accept checks or money orders.

Winter parking-ban tows on the Northwest Side go to Pound 2 at 103rd and Doty Avenue or Pound 6 at 701 N Sacramento, and the city's winter page publishes its own fee set for those: a minimum $150 towing fee, a $60 ticket and $25 per day storage. That is a different set from the $250 and $50 per day published under 9-92-080, and both come from the city. A City of Chicago tow has published fees: $250 to tow a vehicle under 8,000 pounds and $350 at 8,000 pounds or more, with storage at $50 or $100 per day on the same weight split, under Municipal Code 9-92-080. Payment is cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express or Diners Club only, with no checks and no money orders. To release a vehicle you need photo identification, proof of ownership as a title, a current registration card or a bill of sale under 30 days old, current state plates and a Chicago Vehicle Sticker where required, and all charges and fines paid in full. Vehicles are normally stored no less than 21 days from the date the city mails notice, with a right to one 15-day extension under 9-92-100(a); request it from the Auto Pound Office at 312.746.4954.

The Northwest Side is Chicago's Polish and Mexican bungalow belt and the Spanish-language center of the North Side. Belmont Cragin holds roughly 72,100 residents and is 78.1 percent Hispanic, Portage Park about 63,000 and 40.9 percent Hispanic, Hermosa 22,600 and 84.9 percent Hispanic, Montclare 14,300 and 60.7 percent, Dunning 41,200 and 36.7 percent, Jefferson Park 26,600 and 26.9 percent. The Kennedy Expressway cuts diagonally across the entire side with the Blue Line running in its median, and Milwaukee Avenue, the old Northwest Plank Road, runs the same diagonal at street level. Six Corners at Irving Park, Cicero and Milwaukee is one of the best-known intersections in the city, and the Portage Theater and the Copernicus Center at the Jefferson Park transit center anchor the two commercial cores. Montrose station sits in the Kennedy median. This is where the winter overnight parking ban bites hardest in residential Chicago: the ban runs on 107 miles of arterials from 3am to 7am, December 1 through April 1, whether or not snow is present, and Milwaukee, Irving Park and Cicero are exactly that kind of street. Bungalow blocks with short driveways and shared gangways produce the blocked-driveway calls the city routes through 312-746-4520. Operators cover the Kennedy corridor, Six Corners and the Milwaukee Avenue spine, and we answer in Spanish here as a matter of course.