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July 15, 2008
Parking Meter Fees to Increase, Hours to Extend
Amid budget concerns, the Los Angeles City Council voted today to increase parking meter rates and to extend hours of operation. Citywide, hourly rates will be soon be at $1.00 an hour at the minimum. On the high end, some high usage areas will have rates as high as $4.00 an hour. However, you can still can deposit smaller amount of coins for prorated minutes.
Meter hours, which are traditionally 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. will be extended two hours to 8:00 p.m. citywide. In major entertainment and shopping districts identified by the city, hours of enforcement will extend by four hours to 12:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights and by nine hours from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM on Sundays, excluding holidays.
With these two moves combined, the city's 40,000 meters that raise $20 million annually are estimated to garner an extra $18 million, according to Bruce Gillman, Spokesperson for the Department of Transportation.
"Over the past two decades, parking meter rates have not kept pace with the demand or inflation, while off-street rates for privately-owned facilities have continued to rise," Gillman explained leading into some Shoupian urban philosophy. "This growing disparity has created an incentive for drivers to 'cruise' for hard-to-find and under-priced on-street parking, thus generating a great amount of unnecessary traffic congestion and pollution."
Parking meters prices in the city also haven't increased much in the past 20 years. The ordinances are to become effective in late August and citywide implementation will take about 90 days.
Photo by nahh via Flickr
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The switch from 6 to 8 is going to fuck my shit up bad.
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It's about time street parking started to reflect the land use value of the space. As long as free or low cost street parking exists next to $8-$10 parking garages there will always be people cruising and idling in search of a spot, mucking up traffic and creating waste.
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And yet another reason why we should all start riding bikes. I hate that they are charging on Sundays. That really sucks.
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ugggh I for one will also be affected by the 7 to 8pm change.
I take the bus in from South Pasadena most afternoons except when I don't have a ride back in the early morning so I drive in and park.
MTA needs to add more late night buses :( (and yes Ive emailed them to request)
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This is an absolute abomination. It boggles the mind how this city, which is fairly unnavigable without a car, continues to make it harder and harder to drive and park here.
And I am not a person who idles looking for spaces and spends my free time driving aimlessly around the city clogging up the streets, but I do need to run errands once in a while and rely on the metered spaces in my neighborhood to be able to park somewhat near my house in the off hours.
Who can I write about this? I need to protest!
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The meters ain't shit. They're after an increase in their parking violations extortion.
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Motorcyle/scooter parking meters in major retail/commuting neighborhoods please. I will pay, just give me a safe and efficient place to park my two wheeled motorized vehicle.
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Does anyone know whatever happened with the Free Hybrid Parking issue? I remember ealier this summer hearing that it got extended and then hearing a few days later that it may be canceled all together. Was a final decision ever made by the city? Can Hybrids park free or not?
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This is horrible. Its not just a basic increase, this is their way to pump up parking tickets. Come on, midnight on fridays & saturdays? Why don't they wait until they build out a decent public transit system first, so people going out those evenings can still catch a subway or bus home. This city is ridiculous.
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"Can Hybrids park free or not?"
No.
But electric vehicles can park, and even charge for free in some locations.
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Hybrids can still park for free. The city council has not moved to change or extend the law formally yet.
http://www.ladot.lacity.org/tf_Clean_Air_Vehicles.htm
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Oops! I stand corrected.
I guess the one I saw getting a ticket was getting one for something other than an expired meter.
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Isn't it going to cost them a lot just to change all the signage?
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This is really messed up, this city is trying to nickle and dime us to death, with no real improvement in services. When people stop going places because there isn't reasonable parking then the city is going to cry and say their tax revenues are down. There need to be more cityowned parking lots. Look at the economic activity in downtown Culver City versus Westwood Village. Do you think that those businesses would be doing that well if they didnt have those free (for 2hour) lots in that area? This is really bad for local businesses that don't have their own parking structures as well. Some people are going to these places for small short time transactions and they will likely stop going if they have to put money in the meter after 6pm or have to put 2 dollars in the meter to pick something up (i.e coffee shops, bakeries, etc etc).
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Plus they are going to charge on Sundays too...damn it gets worse!!! they aren't nickle and diming us..they are dollar and dollaring us. Did they think of what this is going to do to those "major shopping and entertainment districts"? They might turn them into the ghost towns of tomorrow! Good going city of L.A . Have they studied any other cities before deciding to do this? I hope they didn't compare it to a place like NY where they have a transit system that goes throughout the city and the situation is entirely different.