The 400 block of N New St is Chicago's #15 most-towed block.544 cars towed from January 2025 to March 2026.
That's the stretch of New St between River Dr and Illinois St, in Near North Side. From January 1, 2025 to March 27, 2026 the City towed an average of 8 cars a week off it. 82% were hazard tows, and Saturday is the busiest day.
Ranks every one of the 13,330 Chicago blocks the City towed a car from for a parking reason from January 2025 to March 2026, and shows its ward. Your address never leaves your browser.
- 544parking tows, Jan 2025–Mar 20268a week, on average82%hazard towsWhy cars get towed hereWhenSMTWTFS
By month, then by day of the week. Busiest day: Saturday (19% of tows). The last month runs through March 27, 2026.
I live on the 400 block of N New St — Chicago's #15 block for tows. 544 cars towed off it from January 2025 to March 2026. Is your block on the list? autopilotamerica.com/most-towed-blocks/400-n-new-st
This block's own page →#15 of 13,330 towed blocks
Tap any block for why cars get towed there, when, and a ready-made message for the people who park on it. The ranked list is the full data; the map is the same 50 blocks.
Most of the 50 are downtown.
Parking tows from January 2025 to March 2026, all 82,622 of them, by the reason on the City's record. Reasons with fewer than 500 tows are left out.
Eight blocks where tows rose fastest this winter.
Tows from January 1 to March 27, 2026, against the same days of 2025 — the last day in the City's records, so both winters are the same length. Blocks with at least 60 tows this year and 15 last year that grew at least 1.5×. The records show where towing grew. They don't say why.
- 1600 N Franklin StNear North Side · #19 citywideBiggest jump: tow zone tows (+68)15 → 765.1×
- 21200 N Clark StNear North Side · #11 citywideBiggest jump: tow zone tows (+103)48 → 1392.9×
- 3400 E Ontario StNear North Side · #29 citywideBiggest jump: hazard tows (+55)38 → 1022.7×
- 41000 N Milwaukee AveWest Town · #74 citywideBiggest jump: winter overnight parking ban tows (+33)32 → 652.0×
- 52000 W Division StWest Town · #22 citywideBiggest jump: tow zone tows (+42)61 → 1141.9×
- 61500 W Devon AveEdgewater · #77 citywideBiggest jump: winter overnight parking ban tows (+29)36 → 651.8×
- 72700 N Milwaukee AveLogan Square · #65 citywideBiggest jump: winter overnight parking ban tows (+25)47 → 721.5×
- 80 W Kinzie StNear North Side · #10 citywideBiggest jump: tow zone tows (+48)102 → 1551.5×
Parking tows per block, January 1–March 27 of each year, one shared scale. The “biggest jump” is the tow reason that added the most tows between the two winters.
33% of cars towed for a boot in 2025 were sold at auction. From a tow zone: 1%.
The City's tow inventory records what became of each car. Of the 39,538 parking tows it logged in 2025, 7,748 cars were sold at auction and 31,340 were claimed by their owners. Which of the two usually happened depends on why the car was towed.
- Abandoned vehicle900 of 1,366 cars66%
- Car for sale on the street1,240 of 2,754 cars45%
- Boot (unpaid tickets)2,304 of 6,919 cars33%
- Hazard3,069 of 9,268 cars33%
- Winter overnight parking ban122 of 7,330 cars2%
- Tow zone109 of 11,093 cars1%
- Game-day tow zone4 of 770 cars1%
Share of cars sold at auction, by tow reason, for parking tows in the City's tow inventory in 2025. Status as of the City's April 2026 release, so every car had at least three months to be claimed. Reasons with fewer than 500 tows are left out. The City's separate immediate-tow records don't say what happened to the car, so they aren't in these figures.
The most-towed block in each of Chicago's 77 neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods here are the City's 77 official community areas, so Wicker Park counts as West Town and River North as the Near North Side. Towing is concentrated: in some areas the worst block saw a handful of tows in fifteen months, downtown it saw thousands.
Loading the 77 neighborhoods…
Every ward, ranked by the cars towed off its blocks.
Wards as drawn in 2023 — the map today's aldermen were elected on. Where a ward line runs down the middle of a street, each side's tows go to the ward that side is in, by address. Search your address above and your block's card shows your ward.
Loading the 50 wards…
Find out your car was towed before it sits there.
Autopilot checks the City's tow records for your plate and alerts you when your car shows up — free. Cars that sit get sold: 33% of the cars towed for a boot in 2025 were sold at auction.
Boot tows start with unpaid tickets. Autopilot contests the tickets you get and watches the City's boot list for your plate, so a pile of tickets doesn't turn into a tow.
See how Autopilot works →How to check this.
The records. City of Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation tow records, obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, request F136267 (released April 21, 2026). The release is one spreadsheet holding two different tables: the Department of Streets and Sanitation's tow inventory (51,034parking tows counted here) and its “Immediate Tow” service requests (31,588). They use different record numbers and mostly cover different tows, so both are counted. Where a request and an inventory record are on the same block on the same day, with the car reaching the pound within three hours of the request, they are counted once: 795 requests were matched that way.
What counts.Parking tows only — tow zones, hazards, the winter overnight parking ban, boots, cars for sale on the street, abandoned vehicles, game-day tow zones and the like, labeled here in plain words from the City's reason codes. Police tows (26,232 — stolen cars, arrests, DUI impoundments) are left out: their address is usually the police station, not the curb. Tows from January 1, 2025 through March 27, 2026, the last day in the release — 82,622 in all.
What a block is. Both sides of one hundred-block of one street, the way the tow record gives the address: a tow at 1325 N Milwaukee Ave counts toward the 1300 block of N Milwaukee Ave.
Putting tows on the map.Each block was matched to the City's own street centerline file, which is also where the cross streets, the drawn curbs and the map itself come from. 95%of the tows matched a real City street segment; the rest carry an address that doesn't and are not ranked. 13,330 blocks had at least one tow that matched.
A week, on average divides a block's tows by the NaN weeks in the period.
Fastest rising compares January 1–March 27, 2026 with the same days of 2025, among blocks with at least 60 tows in 2026 and 15 in 2025, and lists those that grew at least 1.5-fold.
What happens to the caris the status on the tow inventory as of the City's April 2026 release, for cars towed in 2025. The immediate-tow table records no outcome.
Neighborhoodsare the City's 77 community areas; a block belongs to the area containing the middle of its street segment. A neighborhood gets its own page when its most-towed block had at least 25 tows.
Wardsuse the 2023 ward map, placed by location: each side of a block is placed in a ward, and a tow's odd or even street number picks its side. 360 blocks have tows in two wards this way; 7 tows fell just outside every ward. The immediate-tow records carry their own ward, which agrees with this placement for 97%of tows. The inventory's ward column agrees for only 19%— most of its rows say Ward 1 — so it isn't used. Aldermen and contacts come from the City's Ward Offices listing.
Left out: 10000 W O'Hare. The airport is one address in the records, not a street block. With its 97 tows it would have ranked #106.
The request letter and release are on our data sources page. Found something that looks wrong? Email randyvollrath@gmail.com and we'll re-check the source.