Santa Monica Looking to Raise Parking Prices

Photo by Lars Plougmann via flickr

Parking at Santa Monica's 3d Street Promenade might get a little more expensive under a plan the city council is exploring, says the Santa Monica Daily Press:

After hearing a presentation by the consultant, the City Council in September directed its staff to develop a plan of action to institute some of the suggestions from the study, including raising the maximum daily rate from $7 to $9, the flat evening rate from $3 to $5, the monthly parking permits from $82.50 to $121 and reducing the existing two hours of free parking in Structures 1-6 and 9 to only one, charging $1 for the second hour.

That's still much cheaper than the maximums found at Westfield in Century City ($22) and The Grove ($24), but, all this has locals worried. What about the short daily trips to the gym or lunch? Doing that in one hour's time is a big rush. So now, consultants developing the new parking plan are exploring the idea of validation, which might be difficult to manage. Unlike a contained environment such as Hollywood and Highland where every tenant of the building can have a validation machine, the parking facilities in downtown Santa Monica serve an endless amount of businesses from the promenade, the beach and Bayside District.