In an ongoing effort to trim its projected $258.2 million budget deficit, the City is proposing a package of comprehensive changes to increase the cost of public parking.
Those changes could include extending meters later in the evening, ending free parking on Sundays, charging for parking in off-street beach parking lots like Mission Bay Park, and instituting special pricing for events at Petco Park and the San Diego Convention Center.
Those proposals are in addition to the City’s doubling parking meter rates from 1.25 to $2.50 an hour on 3,811 paid-parking meters Citywide, which took effect in January. Metered parking currently exists in Downtown, Uptown, Mid-City, and Pacific Beach. Estimates are the new parking meter rates will generate $800,000 monthly, about $9.6 million annually. The rate increase does not affect Port of San Diego waterfront meters already charging $2.50 an hour.
The City also waived a current requirement to share incremental parking revenues resulting from the increased parking meter rates with Community Parking Districts, like the one in Pacific Beach. That revenue share will now go exclusively into the City’s general fund.
The council vote followed the narrow failure last November of a 1 cent sales tax measure on the ballot that would have helped alleviate this year’s City budget deficit.
Those proposed parking rate changes, however, are not yet cast in stone. “The parking reform package is still being developed and is not yet complete, though much of the material was discussed at the Active Transportation and Infrastructure committee meeting of Jan. 30,” said Leslie Wolf Branscomb, senior spokesperson in the City’s Communications Department. “The completed package will be presented to the ATI committee on March 20, then will likely go to the City Council for its consideration, depending on the committee’s actions.”
Also, for the first time since 2003, the City plans to raise the cost of many parking citations by a significant amount, including tickets for expired meters, parking in taxi zones, and bus loading zones. Street sweeping citations will rise from $40 to $72.50, with expired meter fines jumping from $30 to $54.50. The City Council is expected to approve these new citation rates this March, with those rates scheduled to take effect on April 1.
Additionally, the City is considering using demand-based variable pricing for some of its parking meters. The City said that the pricing method seeks to charge less for parking spots when demand is low, so some spots still get filled. Variable pricing charges would be higher when demand is higher. Data from sensors and license plate recognition software would likely be used by the City to determine fluctuations and parking demand – and adjust prices accordingly.
