La Jolla Parking

by Councilman Scott Peters
November 2002

In La Jolla, nothing is unanimous, but almost everyone agrees that we have a parking problem. There have been countless attempts to address it. In 1979, the La Jolla Parking and Business Improvement Association, Inc., was formed to look at the issue and deliver a list of recommendations on how to improve parking in La Jolla. In 1985 they delivered those recommendations, including the construction of a public parking facility in the central business district, the formation of a La Jolla parking district authority to administer and oversee the design and construction of such a facility, and the installation of parking meters or a reasonable workable substitute to finance the work. The city did not implement any of these recommendations, and complaining about parking continued to be a favorite La Jolla topic of conversation.

In 1997, Mayor Susan Golding appointed a task force to look again at these same problems. Again members of the business community, community volunteer groups and individual residents came together and after extensive public input delivered a nine-point plan. That plan included a parking facility in the business district, the need for an independent financing mechanism, and circulation improvements, including the Ardath Road reconfiguration that is currently in construction. Again, the City Council deferred action on many of the more substantive recommendations, which is when I got involved as a concerned resident.

I joined what came to be known as the Parking Advisory Committee ("PAC"), a group of residents and members of the business community that met every Thursday for almost a year to discuss how to maximize La Jolla's parking resource. Guess what? We reached the same conclusions as the other venerable groups had suggested since 1979.

In 2000, my predecessor, Harry Mathis, commissioned a $150,000 study from a nationally known consulting firm, Wilbur Smith and Associates, to see if there were some parking rocks that had not yet been overturned. The consultant completed the study this year. Now, after decades of meetings and $150,000 in professional outside studies, we have reached the following conclusion:

There is a parking problem in La Jolla.

In fact, the study, identified an immediate shortage at peak periods of 788 spaces, growing to 894 spaces in 2005 and 1167 spaces in 2020. There is a need for a parking structure in the business district of La Jolla. Ideally, it would be a place for employees to park so that shoppers and restaurant-goers, especially La Jollans themselves, have ready access to the village. It's also clear that the City of San Diego does not have the resources available to fund such a facility, and that an independent financing mechanism is called for. Parking meters, or a pay and display system, could be - could be - a way to finance a parking structure. It is also clear that angle parking could be - could be - used to create more spaces in the business district.

I am not wedded to any particular approach or solution. I do think, however, that we do not need to do a lot more research. It is now time that we respect the work of all of the volunteers who have worked on this issue for years and that we make a plan to address the parking problem in La Jolla. I want to help the community identify and implement solutions.

I do not and will not support the installation of the standard parking meters on posts in front of each space. Parking meters are ugly and would clutter our beautiful village setting. Pay and display addresses the visual issue and would achieve the same funding opportunity of parking meters without the visual blight. Aspen, Colorado, and other towns with character concerns like La Jolla have had very positive experience with these systems. I think it's worth considering.

The recommendations from the latest parking study are making their way to the San Diego City Council. Over the coming weeks and months, there will be ample opportunity for public input, in addition to that received over the course of the past decades. For more information on how to weigh in, please contact Promote La Jolla, the La Jolla Town Council or my office. I am particularly interested in the effects (positive and negative) that pay and display would have on the village's experience for La Jolla's residents and shoppers. I am also committed to preventing adverse impacts in residential neighborhoods adjacent to the village, and I will support efforts to do that.

I am not committed to any particular strategy, but I want to bring this long journey to an end. The village serves us all and it's in everyone's interest that it works. We are positioned finally to set a course to fix the problem and finally resolve the issue. I look forward to your input and to closing the book on parking.