The following message has been provided by the San Bruno Police Department on May 22, 2024:
Hello San Bruno.
There’s been a lot of misinformation circulating about the new paid parking program in the downtown area, so we’re providing this update to let you know where the program is at right now.
First of all, this program was deployed as a strategic initiative of your City Council, which the police department was asked to take over after multiple years of non-progress. This decision had nothing to do with any sort of corruption as has been suggested on one social media account. It was simply based on the belief that the police department could leverage its experience and resources to successfully deploy a program that had otherwise stalled for years.
The overarching goal of the parking program was to address a severe lack of parking turnover in the downtown area following a 2019 study that noted more than 100% occupancy rates throughout the day and week. This paid parking program targeted the 85% occupancy of on-street parking prescribed in the report, to better ensure that customers could find street parking when needed, and aimed to do so by driving longer term parkers into the various city parking lots throughout the area. While the program is still in its infancy, it is absolutely delivering on both of these objectives, an assertion supported by the data.
As with any new program, the rollout of paid parking has not been without its stumbles and challenges. There were early issues with paid parking kiosks losing power or connectivity. This was due to a combination of poorly positioned charging equipment and faulty batteries/fuses. We have since resolved these issues and have also established a regular schedule of system monitoring and service to address issues as they emerge. Over the last three weeks we are experiencing 97% up time on the kiosks, with prompt response when machines do go down.
We are still having some issues with the coin drops on some of the machines, which are largely due to people putting foreign currency into the coin slots, and deliberate vandalism. We have been monitoring the machines that are being vandalized and will prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law. We are testing a couple of different solutions to this problem as we speak and will deploy mitigating measures as they prove effective.
There have also been some requests for shorter parking durations to be available for on-street parking so that people making quicker pickups do not have to pay for an entire hour to do so. We have heard this request and are working through how this might be accommodated without reversing the desired effect that the program is having on parking turnover, and without compromising its fiscal sustainability. According to the city ordinances adopted for this paid parking program, the Police Chief has the discretion to adjust parking rates within the adopted range, which would include the addition of shorter parking increments. Such adjustments, however, must be based on maintaining the desired 85% occupancy rate, which we are currently hitting. There are fees associated with processing the payments for parking, which the City elected not to pass along to the consumer, but each purchase must be at a minimum price point to cover the transaction fees.
Under this new system we have access to much more data about parking behavior than we have ever had before, and as we have reported from the start, shifts in the program policies and rates should be based upon that data with the aim of achieving the program’s objectives. For that data to be reliable for decision making, it must be collected over a long enough period of time to be indicative of sustained behavior, a threshold that has not yet been reached.
We will continue working to address the inevitable issues that arise with this program. As we speak, we are working on better signage in the parking lots, a broader wayfinding signage project for downtown, QR-code cards for businesses, permit parking options for residents, etc. We are also working diligently with our new parking enforcement resource, LAZ Parking, to ensure that their representatives are conducting themselves courteously and professionally in our community.
Thank you to the many business owners who continue to support our extensive efforts to deliver on this City Council Strategic Initiative. We appreciate you very much.