By Dani Miskell / 10News / Jan 13, 2026
Museums in Balboa Park report a drop in attendance following the rollout of new paid-parking regulations.
The San Diego Natural History Museum, which hosted the first Free Tuesday of January, coinciding with the parking system launch, has seen significant decreases in visitor numbers during what is traditionally one of the park’s most popular programs.
“We’re concerned because we’ve seen a drop off in numbers. We’re down by about 25%,” said Judy Gradwohl, President and CEO of the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Free Tuesdays have been a longstanding tradition at Balboa Park, with museums taking turns offering free admission to visitors. However, the new paid-parking requirement appears to be deterring attendance, despite free museum access.
“We’ve only been in the first week of the parking regulations, but we’re getting a lot of negative feedback from members, from visitors, people in the community, anywhere I go, that’s all anybody wants to talk about,” Gradwohl said.
Gradwohl said the decline in attendance could have lasting effects on the museum’s operations and programming.
“If that keeps up over the year, that’s going to significantly affect our ability to produce educational programs and especially a lot of the free and community-based work that we do,” Gradwohl said.
The Natural History Museum also reports that the City of San Diego installed parking meters at eight of the 16 parking spots on Village Place that were previously designated as 15-minute spots. According to a museum spokesperson, those spots were frequently used by teachers, vendors, and parents.
Gradwohl said she personally supports repealing the parking regulations and is working with the museum’s board and staff to determine an official position.
“We’re ready to talk with the City about that. I know the museums in the park are gathering data to be able to go back and show the effects so far,” Gradwohl said.
Meanwhile, visitors continue to experience difficulties with the new parking payment system. Some report spending up to 10 minutes trying to complete transactions, with technical issues preventing receipt printing.
“It was very slow, and the gal in front of us had difficulty. I had some difficulty. I never did get a receipt,” said Michael Martin, a Balboa Park visitor.
Museum leaders say they shared concerns with the City during the design process and are now collecting data to present evidence of the parking system’s impact on attendance and operations.
I attended a dance last week at the War Memorial Building where people talked in groups about the impact of paid parking. Several volunteer museum doecents informed me they experience attendance down by 40%.
Someone needs to do a year over year statistical analysis before drawing conclusions about attendance. My guess is that attendance is down with or without the parking fees; just don’t know how much is Trump and how much is parking fees.