By Kate Callen
Most parking shakedowns are simple transactions. Two guys block off a curb space with orange cones. If you hand them cash, they remove the cones and guide you into the spot.
San Diego is seeing a new kind of parking shakedown on a broader scale. First, build so much housing with no off-street parking that curb spaces are completely full. Then offer “residential permits” so people can pay to park in their own neighborhoods.
The idea was outlined in a July 14 Times of San Diego article, “Permit options pitched to planning group amid housing growth and parking concerns.” The story reported that “dense housing adds more vehicles — and more pressure — to already crowded streets.” (Who knew?) To ease the pressure, YIMBY-affiliated advocacy group Ride SD is presenting “a new framework” for residential permit parking.
Of course, it isn’t news that overbuilding has choked off street parking in too many neighborhoods. But it is news that density forces are admitting that.
For over a decade, when residents have complained about parking shortages, YIMBY Democrats, the building industry, and City Hall have given a cavalier response: Let them take transit and ride bikes.
I wish San Diegans could take transit to get where they want to go. I wish I could take transit as regularly as I did in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington D.C.
What I learned back east is that the only mode of public transit that can move legions of commuters around a metropolis is underground rail. No system that travels above ground can provide the necessary speed, reach, and capacity.
As for our much-touted bike lanes, they have become a failed experiment that has cost taxpayers a fortune. The allocation for the University Avenue Bikeway is $44.5 million. That is roughly 80 times the $540,000 it would have cost to keep all 28 Mission Bay Park restrooms open.
Bikeways are notoriously underutilized – “Those goddamn empty bike lanes!” is a familiar rant. And they can impede mass transit by disrupting designated bus lanes, like the ones on Park Boulevard leading to the Zoo.
This means that for nearly all San Diego commuters, cars are the only mode of transportation that will convey you from your North Park home to arrive on time at your Sorrento Valley job.
Manny Rodriguez, who is president of Ride SD and of the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego, apparently grasps the reality of widespread car dependence. He is presenting the residential permit idea to planning groups as a way to mitigate the impact of density that YIMBYs promoted.
On July 9, as reported by the Times, Rodriguez told the Navajo Community Planning Group that “Ride SD’s petition-driven process would allow each community to choose its own rules, including permit limits, distribution methods and visitor policies.”
And he “pointed to Barrio Logan, where a residential permit district was created after motorists coming for Petco Park events kept overwhelming nearby streets. Existing districts charge $11.50 for an annual permit.”
But there’s a catch, and it’s in the fine print in the City’s “Residential Parking Permit” webpage:
“[Permits are] intended for residential areas that are severely impacted by all-day commuter parking generated by a nearby facility or institution. Areas that are impacted by heavy demand for on-street parking by residents are not candidates for residential permit parking.”
San Diego has five residential parking permit areas: Hillcrest (UCSD Medical Center), SDSU/ College Area, Logan Heights (Petco Park), Mesa College, and El Cortez/ Downtown. None qualified simply because residents needed more parking.
In response to a Rag query, Ride SD explained that its proposal “would require amendments to the municipal code” and that would “require a Councilmember who is willing to introduce an ordinance at the Council to amend the municipal code.
“Our goal with presenting to CPGs and stakeholder groups is to build public support for this idea so as to compel the Council to take the issue up.”
It seems unlikely that the City will open the permit floodgates so that any neighborhood could sell parking rights.
But then, it didn’t seem likely that the City would charge for parking in Balboa Park (due to expire December 31). And we never thought trash collection fees would be twice the estimate promised before we cast votes to approve them.
And just think of the City’s windfall if residents paid for curb space near their homes!
Let’s open the floor to Rag readers. Post a comment if you feel desperate enough pay for street parking or if you think this is yet another a bridge too far.
