Paid Parking on Adams Not Working for UH Businesses or the City
As previously reported in UH News, the paid parking enforcement along Adams Avenue between Park Boulevard and North Avenue has gone into full effect. The cost for parking in these spaces is $2.50 per hour with a two-hour maximum. Breaking news as this issue went to print: the City of San Diego Transportation Department announced that enforcement hours will be extended for all metered parking spaces to now be Monday through Saturday from 8am to 8pm, with some spaces (none in UH at this time) also adding Sunday enforcement.
UH News has heard from a number of businesses about the confusion due to poor signage, a single parking pay station that is partially obscured from view, and the overall lack of parking for employees of local businesses.
The Park Salon owner and UHCA business member Leslie Scavone has been especially hard hit, losing one of her stylists due to his inability to find parking and difficulty for clients with appointments that last longer than two hours. Scavone told us, “We lost parking after the bike lanes were put in, and now my clients don’t even know where to pay for these spaces. There has to be a way to make this work for our community, especially for the businesses.”
UHCA business member Roxanne Govari of Pemberley Realty also has employees experiencing difficulties: “My staff are here for eight or more hours, so the two-hour limit doesn’t work. Finding parking in the neighborhood was already a challenge, but with even more cars battling for the few spaces there are, it’s definitely a problem.”
Scavone reached out to Councilmember Whitburn about the issues her business is facing. During a meeting with the Councilmember’s representative, the idea of a permit system where business owners could purchase a parking pass for employees (and alleviate some of the parking stress while also bringing in revenue that the City is not currently generating) was raised. Scavone also asked about extending the maximum time to four hours to accommodate her clients. Other items discussed:
The “Pay Here” sign is nowhere near the pay station, causing confusion. The lack of signage specifying that these spaces require a ticket to be purchased and placed on the dashboard is also a problem.
The spaces are extremely underutilized. Over the course of two weeks we documented no more than five cars parked at any one time between 8am-6pm in the 32 spots. These parking spaces are clearly not generating the much-needed revenue that the City was hoping for, and at the same time are impacting an already challenging parking situation on the adjacent streets.
We hope that positive changes will be implemented to make this new parking situation clearer and more workable for the neighborhood and our businesses.
