Home » SLO City News » SLO Parking on Automatic
SLO City News

SLO Parking on Automatic

DSC_0022

Two more affable fellows, willing to bend the reader’s ear about parking for an hour, won’t be found anywhere but 1260 Chorro St. Suite B.

That’s the City of SLO’s Public Works Parking Services office, and unless locals have popped by to pay a ticket in person, they probably won’t know it.

Parking manager Scott Lee, and his deputy, the parking services supervisor Alexander Fuchs, have been transitioning the department “out of the weeds” in a manner of speaking, since Lee’s arrival from Madison, Wisconsin three months ago.

In the nine months that Fuchs has had the supervisory position, which handles the details of operations, there have been three parking managers. In short, the pair said, the service was on autopilot trying to maintain since the departure of longtime manager Robert Horch.

“People don’t like to talk about parking,” said Lee, “They like to [complain] about it, but not talk with us first before there’s an issue.”

He added that the department is trying to change that now that they’ve got a team solidly at the helm and a slate of priorities recently handed down from the SLO City Manager and the Mayor’s office.

Among the top long term goals will be creating a new parking structure in the City’s surface Lot #14, better known as the Palm/Nipomo site.

The SLO City Council was set to give the go ahead for an Environmental Impact Report on the site from the Rincon Consulting group Sept. 6. – after the deadline for this issue.

Regardless of what happens at this early stage, Lee believes it will take approximately five years for a structure open with enough units to alleviate the strain caused by multiple downtown developments taking over former metered lots.

“Development is good for a city, we’d rather see space being used for people than just a parking space,” said lee,” but we do have to find solutions.”

Aside from simply looking for more property to acquire or trade for more space, they’ve also expanded an overnight parking program for Downtown residents to park in structures overnight with a special permit. Considering the spate vehicle burglaries around the Downtown-core the fact that the structures are actually monitored for which vehicles are allowed to stay overnight probably makes them a safer option than the metered lots.

Smaller projects along the way, such as installing credit card readers at all structures will help speed up lot turnover during peak times as well, but the cost for installation is high compared to the work they’ve been doing so far moving the meters displaced from the Chinatown and Hotel Sierra Projects.

“The best thing I can do is to stay out ahead of projects and discuss needs before the planning phases is complete,” said Lee, adding that it’s hard to create a win-win between all the city’s commuters, residents and tourists, but again, they’re working on it.

Tags

Upcoming Events

  1. SLO Home Show

    September 17 - September 18