Is a free hour of parking enough to lure you back to downtown SLO? | Opinion

Good for you, citizens of SLO.

You talked and the city listened. It reinstated the first hour of free parking in the downtown structures.

That’s not all. Parking will once again be free on Sundays there as well, and not just during peak church hours, either. It’ll be free all day long.

But don’t get too used to it; the price rollback is temporary.

After all, the city has to find some way to pay for that new $53 million, five-story parking garage going up at Palm and Nipomo streets.

The new garage should relieve parking congestion in the downtown — at least for the foreseeable future. But the city must find a better way to pay off the debt. Jacking up the cost of parking every few years will backfire — downtown will lose visitors, and that means many of those expensive new parking spaces will be empty.

Downtown businesses struggling

At a standing-room-only City Council meeting on Tuesday, downtown business owners and employees spoke of how the rate increase already has hurt their livelihoods.

The manager of Sephora, a cosmetics store, said sales have dropped 20% since July, when the $3-an-hour rate took effect in the garages.

The increase has been hard on workers as well. “If employees choose to park in the structures, they lose almost an hour just to come to work,” the manager said, adding that it’s gotten harder to hire and retain workers as a result.

Business owners have blamed the higher cost of parking for their losses, but for years, downtown visitors have been making other complaints as well.

Too much traffic. Constant road work. Too many vacant buildings. The loss of “anchor” stores like Ross and Beverly’s Fabrics. Confusion over how to navigate streets with reconfigured bike lanes. Cracked sidewalks that can make walking precarious. And so on.

But it’s the parking issue that’s been the final straw for many, and it’s not just the price increase.

The new gateless technology at the Palm Street garage that requires drivers to use a pay station or pay on an app is a big headache for some drivers unfamiliar with the system. Plus, the free-hour-for-locals program was confusing and unwieldy. It’s been too many changes all at once.

Free hour is not enough

A sympathetic City Council not only approved the reinstatement of the free hour, it also authorized a parking rate study to provide some long-term guidance. Results are expected in April. Among the possibilities to be studied:

• Stop charging for on-street parking between 6 and 9 p.m.

• Eliminate the “locals only” program and give everyone a free hour of parking, permanently.

• Reduce the amount of an-all day pass, which is currently $12.

Those are good ideas, but they don’t go far enough. To help downtown SLO stay competitive, the city needs to make parking as affordable as possible especially for employees, who are the ones who keep downtown businesses running.

Consider, too, that many other popular shopping areas charge less or nothing at all.

According to a city survey, Paso Robles charges $2 an hour for street parking but only after two free hours; in downtown Santa Barbara, the first 75 minutes are free in parking garages and after that, it’s $3 an hour. Street parking — if you’re lucky enough to find it there — is free.

Missing from the list is Santa Maria, where all parking is free, including at shopping centers and even at the airport.

Parking also is free at the many shopping areas outside of downtown SLO, including at the SLO Promenade, where the popular Nordstrom Rack just opened.

What’s next?

The city deserves credit for reversing course, but this fiasco could have — and should have — been avoided.

Doubling parking rates to $3 an hour — $4 for prime street parking — was a huge mistake.

We’ll repeat what we said back in June: “With all due respect, that’s just nuts.”

Unfortunately, the downtown lost some goodwill when the city messed with parking; some residents of neighboring communities who regularly shopped or dined out downtown now avoid it.

The city now has the opportunity for a do-over on parking rates. Don’t blow it.