San José Leaders Consider Increasing Parking Rates
San José leaders will consider on Tuesday approving increased parking meter and garage rates and expanded hours of meter enforcement, a proposal that has rankled some downtown business owners and residents and stirred upset among city parking board members.
In an effort to help shore up ongoing budget deficits, and to account for the rising cost of providing parking infrastructure, city transportation officials are proposing a phased rollout that would bump the city’s downtown parking meters rates from the current $2 per hour to $3 per hour next year, and $4 per hour beginning in 2030.
The city hasn’t raised downtown parking meter rates since 2014, according to Colin Heyne, a spokesperson for San José’s Department of Transportation.
“We know people don’t want to pay more for parking. So this is something that we’ve just dealt with for many years, even as costs have gone up,” Heyne said. “But with this budget deficit, we felt it was finally time to pull the bandage off.”
The city has pulled $1.2 million from parking funds to help support the city’s general fund, which faced a $50 million shortfall in the current budget, and expects to continue redirecting a similar amount to the general fund in the coming years.
City officials tried to approve a quicker doubling of parking meter rates in the downtown core in June, with an item tucked into the consent calendar section of a City Council meeting agenda, a portion of the agenda for items that are considered routine and typically not discussed in depth.
But residents, business owners and the San José Downtown Association raised concerns, and said they weren’t consulted about such a change. The council ultimately put the idea on hold, and asked transportation staff to come up with a different plan, resulting in the phased proposal.
Parking enforcement officers have also seen increases in drivers parking their cars in 2-hour restricted spots well beyond those time limits, by continually feeding the meter, officials said. The city wants to increase prices in part to encourage more turnover downtown for curbside spots near businesses, which are considered “premier customer parking,” Heyne said, and push people who need to park for longer times to city garages, which would cost less per hour.
The city’s current proposal would eventually affect all 2,500 city meters. Those outside of downtown would increase from $2 per hour to $3 per hour in 2030, according to city reports. City parking garages would see $3 increases to their event rates and $1 increases to their hourly rates later this year. Another $2 bump to event rates would occur in 2029, bringing the event rate total anywhere from $15 to $35 for events, depending on the garage.
But perhaps the most controversial aspect of the proposal is to widen the hours that parking meters are active and require payment. Meters in the city are currently active Monday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but the city’s new plan would extend the enforcement time until 9 p.m., which some critics say will hurt downtown businesses and workers.
Brian Kurtz, CEO of the San José Downtown Association, said the area has not rebounded nearly enough since the pandemic to raise meter prices.
“The idea of increasing parking rates and adding additional barriers of entry for the same visitors that we’re attempting to attract in downtown, I think it’s detrimental to downtown’s progress at the end of the day,” Kurtz said.
The change would ultimately be “another reason for people to question whether it makes sense to come into downtown and support our small business community and the great restaurants that we have down here,” he said.
Tamiko Rast, vice chair of the city’s Downtown Parking Board, and CEO of the Japantown Business Association, has vocally opposed extending the hours and supported higher hikes on city garage event rates.
“There’s going to be pain inflicted, so where are you going to inflict the pain? Are we going to do it in a place that could potentially bankrupt some downtown businesses? Or are we going to inconvenience event parkers when the Sharks are going to have a great season?” she said.
Rast said many people do not park in city garages currently because they feel that they aren’t clean or as safe as curbside parking.
“If people feel safe coming to our garages and they have a clean walkway up the stairwells, I don’t think the price is going to matter as much as you would think. But right now, it’s a combination of a higher price and low quality that I think people will notice,” she said, noting some garages, like The Globe garage on South Third Street, smell like urine or other unpleasant odors.
Rast said the city is counting on higher rates and more ticketing enforcement during longer hours to help fill budget needs, but she thinks some people may simply avoid downtown instead of paying higher rates.
“We’re going off of a lot of assumptions about human behavior and how they park in downtown, and I think they’re incorrect assumptions,” she said.
Heyne said the city plans to use the increased rates to help pay for a series of ongoing maintenance needs and targeted improvements, including parking garage painting, floor resurfacing and lighting, and the installation of an additional elevator at the Second and San Carlos garage.
“We constantly need to replace or upgrade older parking meters that are nearing the end of their useful life, and we would like to add new security features across all of our parking facilities, plus expand our current existing security patrols and coverage,” Heyne said. “All of that requires funding.”
Kurtz, the head of the downtown association, however, said the city’s plans to take more than $1 million out of the parking fund and send it to the city’s general fund is wrongheaded, with so many improvements needed in parking garages and other infrastructure.
“If we’re going to experience an increase in parking rates in downtown, we feel it’s only right for those parking assets to experience the benefit of those increased rates and invest in those user experiences,” he said.
One portion of the proposal that has found support from the downtown association is a plan to expand a program for some lower-wage downtown employees to receive discounted monthly parking at city garages, in an attempt to help protect workers from the pinch of higher parking costs.
The program currently offers a half-price discount on city parking garage monthly permit rates to employees working in meter districts who earn no more than 30% over the minimum wage of $18.45 per hour. Under the proposal, the city program would expand to include people who earn up to 50% more than minimum wage, and would exclude tips from the threshold.
“We’re hoping that one outcome of this whole process is that more people are aware of this program and more people take advantage of it,” Heyne said.