Meters not in the bag

Cindy Frazier

The bagging of some 200 parking meters along Glenneyre Street and

Coast Highway between Thalia and Diamond Streets to decommission

parking meters and to let people to park for an unlimited time for

free has not been without its glitches.

The 60-day program, which is costing the city $35,000, is designed

to determine who has been parking on residential streets in the area,

adding to traffic congestion and reducing parking for residents.

The meters limit parking to three hours, making them inconvenient

for employees of local businesses. Residents suspect that employees

have been using unmetered spaces in front of homes for all-day

parking, and they wanted proof.

The parking meter bagging program began the second week of July

and will continue through Labor Day, said City Manager Ken Frank.

Originally, the program was to have run from June 1 through the end

of July.

A parking consultant will periodically assess how long vehicles

are being left at the “bagged” spaces, and whether they are

employees.

The parking study has been beset with problems, however.

Members of the Village Flatlanders Neighborhood Assn., a local

activist group that sought the study, suspected that not enough bags

were purchased to cover 75% of the meters, as called for -- and they

were right.

Some 75 to 100 meters that should have been bagged were not. Most

of the those were on Coast Highway, Frank says.

The bags have been ordered and should be in place “any day,” the

city manager said.

Flatlanders officer Roger von Butow discovered the under-bagging

and reported it to city officials.

“I think it [the study] is being massaged by City Hall to muddy

the results of the study,” von Butow said. “This has screwed up the

entire study and wasted an entire month.”

Frank says the actual study won’t take place until all the bags

are put on, at the end of the month, so the delay won’t affect the

results.

But placing more bags on the meters won’t help the other problem

-- bags have been disappearing from the meters.

“We have been getting calls from people who are not happy with the

bags,” Frank said.

City officials think some of the bag-takers may simply be looking

for souvenirs, but they suspect that most are business owners who

want to keep the meters in place so their customers will have a place

to park.

All in all, Frank admits the meter bagging won’t tell city

officials anything they don’t already know -- that employees needing

long-term parking don’t like to use metered parking.

“We hope to get a better picture of the parking situation, and

we’ll know what’s happening before and after the meter bagging,” he

said.

When the consultant completes the study, a report will be given to

an ad hoc City Council subcommittee that has been working on the

issue with the Flatlanders, led by council members Jane Egly and

Steven Dicterow.

Chamber of Commerce members, who have also been working on the

parking issue, hope the study will show just what the demands are on

the city’s finite parking resources. They also hope it will lead to

ideas on how to ease parking congestion in other areas as well.

Frank says he has surveyed the bagged area and has made his own

assessment.

“It [the commercial street] is packed in the morning, so the

program has pushed employees from residential streets,” Frank said.