SLO seeks to update parking policy after more than 20 years. What could change?
The city of San Luis Obispo is seeking to update its parking plan for the first time in more than 20 years.
Proposed changes include increasing downtown parking fees, installing more bike parking and adding electric vehicle charging stations.
The city’s Access and Parking Management Plan (APMP), which regulates parking and public transit policy in SLO, was originally introduced in 2002 and got a minor revision in 2011.
“Since then, we really haven’t done anything,” Gaven Hussey, parking program manager for the San Luis Obispo Public Works Department.
That’s a problem because many components of the parking management plan are outdated by several years compared to more recent policies, he explained.
There are a number of immediate fixes the city can implement to alleviate transportation issues, Hussey said, such as a so-called “transportation wallet,” which the draft plan defines as a “flexible benefit that allows people to pay for multiple modes of transportation, such as bike share, transit and e-bike discounts.”
“People want to come downtown, park downtown and participate in all the stuff we have to offer,” Hussey said. “But right now, parking doesn’t support programs sufficiently to encourage that.”
After two rounds of community feedback, the revised parking management plan is scheduled to come before the San Luis Obispo City Council on Feb. 21. Here’s everything we know so far about the proposed updates.
Proposed changes to SLO parking policy
Over the past two decades, Hussey said, San Luis Obispo’s parking management plan has “really fallen out of line” with the other guiding documents the city uses in its planning processes, such as the General Plan and Downtown Concept Plan.
Other plans, such as the 2021 Active Transportation Plan and 2022 Climate Action Plan, Hussey said, have also outpaced the APMP’s original stipulations.
The result is a set of zoning and planning guidelines that often contradict each other, Hussey said.
“My goal moving forward is to make sure the plan stays as up to date as possible,” Hussey said.
As it stands, public transit currently accounts for only 2.8% of resident city trips —a figure the General Plan aims to boost to 12%, the draft parking management said.
According to San Luis Obispo Active Transportation manager Adam Fukushima, bikes make up for 8.3% of all resident city trips. That’s much higher than most cities, he said.
However, the city can grow its adoption of alternate transportation by giving cyclists and pedestrians more reasons to leave their cars in their driveways, Fukushima said.
“Every time we’ve done some kind of improvement to the bikeway network to make it easier and more affordable to use a bike, we’ve always seen a spike in increased use,” Fukushima said.
How does proposed plan affect parking fees?
First, the draft plan promotes alternate travel methods by reducing subsidies for parking as well as increasing downtown parking permit rates and expanding downtown parking options to include daily parking bundles.
The plan also proposes switching monthly, quarterly or annual downtown parking permits to daily parking permits, reducing subsidized parking for city employees and adopting a local parking cash-out ordinance.
The cash-out ordinance requires employers with more than 50 employees who offer free parking for workers in owned or leased spaces to offer the equivalent value in cash, the draft plan said.
This strategy would essentially make parking a less affordable and available option for people seeking to travel downtown.
The update also looks to create positive incentives and programs for active transportation and transit, such as a transportation wallet benefit for downtown employees riding public transit or using bikes; implementing a bike share program and evaluating the current parking in-lieu fee that developers pay in exchange for not building parking.
Under the proposed update, active transportation would be made easier to access by installing more bike parking, adding bicycle valet parking, evaluating bicycling parking requirements and continuing existing Active Transportation Plan plans on bicycle safety.
The draft plan also proposes raising awareness of travel options by promoting walking, biking and public transit via transportation advertising campaigns.
One person who responded in an online review forum said that educating the public on alternate modes of transportation and improving bike pathways will help make downtown SLO safer. However, they said the options the city presented in its proposed parking management plan will not be successful in curbing car use.
“We know that tourists are willing to pay whatever rate is set when on vacation, but we do not want to make our downtown cost prohibitive to our residents,” wrote the anonymous resident, who lives and works downtown. “We all want less emissions, but we can not discount the fact that driving is a necessary part of all of our lives and often, the only option we have in a busy world.”
According to the draft plan, the city also needs to “support Parking Services success by using parking spaces efficiently, promoting fiscal responsibility, ensuring availability, and improving the customer experience.”
The draft parking management provided four strategies for accomplishing that goal.
First, the updated plan recommends providing subsidies for parking, to keep parking occupancy under the 85% threshold, and implements tiered and demand-based prices for available spots while making expansions to paid parking.
It would also reduce the number of 10-hour parking meters and 10-hour street permits and prioritize curb space in future plans over parking.
“Overall, I would say all of our paid parking is probably about mid-50% for occupancy,” Hussey said. “A lot of that parking is in outlying areas, where we have 10-hour meters so (paid parking is) not as heavily utilized.”
In addition, the plan would aim to make it easier to seek out alternate transportation — by updating the city website to highlight other transportation options, simplifying parking meter signage transitioning to virtual parking permits and expanding electric vehicle and bike charging locations.
Finally, the updated plan would create parking permit districts to maximize parking capacity by spreading parking permits across multiple parking permit districts to lessen the load on high-traffic blocks and offering commuter permits based on block-by-block availability.
“This is an overarching framework, and that a lot of these strategies will be initiated in each subsequent financial plan,” Fukushima said.
What’s next?
Hussey said the San Luis Obispo Public Works Department hopes to have the proposed parking management plan finalized by Tuesday.
If the City Council decides to approve the plan on Feb. 21, the road forward isn’t entirely certain.
The parking plan’s policies and funding would be integrated into the city’s next financial plan update, which will set economic policy through 2025.
With parking funding tapped as is during the construction of a fourth parking garage on the corner of Palm Street and Nipomo Street, implementing some of the more expensive elements of the program will have to wait around two years to get off the ground..
“Parking is a very hot topic in our community,” Hussey said. “People feel very fervently either for or against vehicles in our area.”
San Luis Obispo resident Mariko Kriege wrote in an online forum that she appreciates the thoroughness of the updated plan.
“As a long-time resident of SLO, I appreciate the considerations for electric cars and electric bikes, bicycles, and pedestrians,” Kriege wrote. “These are the modes I will be using to visit downtown most often now and in the future. We have made some good improvements so far and are moving in the right direction.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
