r/sandiego • u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights • 1d ago
You’re not entitled to free parking
I keep seeing people frustrated by changes that impact parking—whether it’s new housing, bike lanes, or restaurants using former parking spots for outdoor dining. But here are two hard truths:
1. San Diego is getting more dense.
2. You are not entitled to street parking.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for in November—this won’t change. San Diego can’t expand outward anymore, so we’re building up. It’s time to adjust.
I get it—change is uncomfortable, and it’s natural to feel nostalgic about how things used to be. But resisting it won’t stop more people from moving here. Maybe you don’t want to ride a bike or there’s no convenient public transit for you, and that’s fine. But expecting 180 square feet of free real estate for your car everywhere you go just isn’t realistic anymore.
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u/which_objective 1d ago
I really, really wish San Diego would turn parking lots into parking structures. We could fit a TON more cars in the same space if we build up.
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u/danquedynasty La Mesa 1d ago
Should note, a lot of those parking lots aren't city owned. They're owned by families and individuals via trusts. Parking companies like ACE just lease the land from them.
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u/mggirard13 1d ago
They're known locally as the ACE parking mafia.
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u/Quttlefish 1d ago
I recently worked a bar remodel on 4th and Market. Instead of fucking with street parking I used the ACE lot on 6th and just carted my tools over. I was there for eight hours and it cost me nine bucks and 10 minutes of extra time.
Seemed completely reasonable even before the contractor paid for it.
Do people just think you should be able to go downtown and do business for free? If you are doing anything worth a shit it's validated and paid for by the company you are visiting.
Recreational shit at night is the realm of drunk people who shouldn't be in cars.
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
Yeah exactly. Regardless of your recreation, even if its Sunday lunch with Grandma, you can either i) show up 20 minutes early and drive in circles looking for street parking or ii) Pay less than the cost of an appetizer and just park in a garage or private lot.
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u/Glittering-Act4004 1d ago
Or take an Uber. I’ve found Ubers from the college area to Little Italy and downtown cost less than parking. It’s sometimes more expensive coming home but worth it when I didn’t have to look for parking and could have a couple of cocktails
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u/Quttlefish 1d ago
Uber on the way out of downtown after events does absolutely gouge you and takes forever but it's better than driving yourself late at night there.
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u/Ok-Peak5192 University City 1d ago
yes, but only if the total amount of parking stays the same or decreases. because if you're just trying to pack more cars into San Diego, you'll need to keep widening the roads until the whole county is paved over. it really makes more sense to take that money and invest it in transit and bike infrastructure instead.
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u/Nobodyimportant56 1d ago
Widening lanes induces more traffic and can really be self defeating, even slowing things down from the extra traffic too
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u/Ok-Peak5192 University City 1d ago
Yup, adding an extra lane doesn’t improve traffic flow linearly. e.g. if a road is 2 lanes and you add one more, the max throughput improves by less than the expected 50%. That’s because people changing lanes to be able to turn left/right or enter/exit slows down the flow.
By contrast, you can always run a train/bus twice as frequently and double the max throughput.
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u/Nobodyimportant56 1d ago
See, focusing on the number of people being moved instead of the number of vehicles is really how it should be considered
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u/chindef 1d ago
Seriously. We gotta stop feeding the car brains.
Problem is that building public transit is expensive and very confusing / difficult for cities to actually take on. It’s easier for them to keep playing whack-a-mole by putting a little money here and there to resolve a tiny portion of the 99% of complaints that they get which are car related issues.
We have been chasing this issue since the 1930’s in New York. The more roads you build, the more cars there are. As soon as a new lane is added, the road is instantly as overburdened as it was before. Once there is a new bridge, it is backed up - and the adjacent roads are even more backed up. Now there’s just more people irritated in bumper to bumper traffic, not getting anywhere, spewing more CO2 into the air. We need courageous cities to truly take on public transit and commit to it to get rid of the car dependency. You can’t even take a trolly to the airport! Wtf!
There are also so many people that are anti- bike. We live in some of the best weather in the world. Get out there and enjoy it!
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
The cars versus public transportation debate will rage on forever. The thing that inspired me to post today is: if we accept the American premise that "you can pry my SUV from my cold dead hands " then fine, you can sit in traffic, breathe the smog, that's your prerogative. But this idea that you feel entitled to a free parking spot is incongruous to your rugged car-centric individualism. Free parking? Sounds like socialism to me! /s 😋
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u/Ok-Peak5192 University City 1d ago
It absolutely is hypocritical coming disproportionately from people who don’t want to pay taxes toward programs that benefit others
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u/LocallySourcedWeirdo Rancho Santa Fe 1d ago
I agree that multi-level garages are a more efficient use of a footprint, and offer covered parking so that cars don't bake in the sun.
But construction costs are prohibitive as well as maintenance (electricity for lighting, ventilation and janitorial costs are ongoing). So it becomes a question of who pays for the construction and who pays to maintain it? Logically, the costs could be paid by the people who park in the garage, but people here have been conditioned to think that they are owed free parking. If a shopping center or government pays for the garage, then those costs are passed on to people who might not even be using the garage.
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u/Man-e-questions 📬 1d ago
North Park did a great job there with that structure that holds a lot of cars, is only like $1 an hour or something and close walking distance to alot of places.
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u/NHBikerHiker 1d ago
A parking structure is around 10X as expensive as a surface lot. Takes a HUGE investment for a parking garage.
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u/black_tshirts 1d ago
or, ya know, places like the McDonalds on A and Park, they don't need a gigantic fucking parking lot. underground parking, first level retail, apartments above.
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u/chill_philosopher 1d ago
I just looked up this McDonalds it was maddening how much real estate they use to park ~20 cars. That's prime real estate!
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u/black_tshirts 18h ago
there are lots (see what i did there?) of properties like that in many downtown areas. i know the cost to improve is astronomical and who wants to do it, and i fuckin' hate developers as much as the next guy that isn't a developer, but in this day & age, as is very apparent in DTSD, san diego needs housing.
is that too many commas?
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
This will definitely happen in some places but it’s a lot more expensive to build a parking structure than to just pave a lot
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u/UseThisForGamingLOL 1d ago
You mean tweaker shelters? I’m in the same page but we already know what those would turn into FAST
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u/UpsideDownABC Normal Heights 1d ago
Have we considered turning the ocean into a parking lot with single family homes?
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u/danquedynasty La Mesa 1d ago
ngl a boat house would be pretty sick.
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u/kneedeepballsack- 1d ago
I used to live in a boat as a kid, it’s an amazing experience, very unique lifestyle
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u/UpsideDownABC Normal Heights 1d ago
Need a man with a boat in my life
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u/bluekonstance San Marcos 1d ago
have always wanted a boat car or to just be able to drive my car in the ocean
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u/Iamveganbtw1 1d ago
I disagree. If I’m paying taxes I’m entitled to infrastructure that facilitates movement through the city I am living in
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u/Comfortable_Dust3967 1d ago
I am entitled to free parking idc what you say!!!
my handicap placer says so!
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u/Ok-Peak5192 University City 1d ago
federal law literally ensures that you will always have parking wherever you need to go. OP isn't talking about you.
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u/Final_Bother7374 1d ago
There is a significant lack of disabled parking in San Diego.
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u/madi80085 1d ago
I don't even drive and I still think the lack of parking is a huge problem. Just telling people "hop on a bike or bus" neglects people with physical disabilities or people who feel unsafe with those options. I really can't blame anyone for feeling like or bus system is horrid because I hate that I have to use the bus. Just yesterday there was a puddle on the floor of the bus I was on and I didn't even want to think about what it was. I remember being legitimately scared when I took the bus home after high school sports after sundown. Nobody I know who moved here as an adult uses public transport. Hell, I know more people who use a Pelton than an actual bike.
I'm just flabbergasted when I see posts like this so often when I look around me and see a very different picture. I genuinely can't tell if I'm in some weird bubble that keeps out everyone on a bike, if everyone here is just virtue signaling while taking their cars everywhere, or if the venn diagram of bicyclist/public transit users and redditors is just a circle.
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u/Smoked_Bear Clairemont Mesa West 1d ago
Reddit is in no way representative of real life. Up & down votes mean nothing, echo chambers all around. Real life is not a doom and gloom paved hellscape these people make it out to be. Ignore them.
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u/AdmirableBattleCow 📬 1d ago
I agree public transportation is currently not a solution the way it is now. But biking definitely is. You can easily cover 15 miles on a standard bike. People who are super out of shape can get a motor-assisted bike. If everyone who was capable of using a bike actually did so, the people who physically can't use one wouldn't have to worry as much about parking their car.
But yes, ultimately we need to massively expand public transit and enforce the rules heavily with security officers if necessary.
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
Which mode of transportation you choose to take is your choice. That's not the point here.
The point is: If you choose to drive, you are not guaranteed free parking.
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u/PlanZSmiles 1d ago
Doesn’t stop the fact that this city was designed with driving in mind and building without parking in mind and not revising transit causes undue stress on what little parking options people have available.
Not having a car is not an option unless you live in downtown or the adjacent neighborhoods. If you have to go to work up north or south you are also required to have a car. There aren’t many options to get into every neighborhood in San Diego.
I do agree the city is expanding and that we should build vertically. But it’s not difficult to build the first couple floors with parking for the residents so that 100s of people in a single building aren’t competing for public parking.
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u/TheEpicSquish 1d ago
As a gig worker, I sure hope y'all expect to get your own food and groceries than. Where am I supposed to park to bring people their stuff id San diego is taking all the parking and spots. Like. Seriously. I'm legit worried over this.
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u/CurReign 1d ago
In the middle of the street, apparently. If the delivery drivers I see are anything to go off of.
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u/TheEpicSquish 1d ago
My "Favorite" is when they do this in a one lane street, like thanks dude. :/
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u/night-shark 1d ago
While I totally understand your frustration, solving this does not require dedicated parking. Just short term loading zones. Other, far more impacted cities do just fine with delivery services.
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u/doscruces Oceanside 1d ago
I’m sure there have been times that you were unable to find a place to stop because all the parking spots were taken. An effective curb management strategy would account for deliveries by rededicating parking spots to use as delivery/loading zones.
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u/TheEpicSquish 1d ago
I have a few times! It's very frustrating since I either need to park illegally or walk much further than should be necessary. Or call the customer and ask if they can please come meet me. If a red zones could get added in neighborhoods Id be much much more welcome for the change.
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u/globus_pallidus 1d ago
You can’t park in a red zone ever. Short term spots are green, white, and yellow. I think white is passenger loading/unloading and yellow is commercial loading/unloading. Not sure where your service would fall.
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u/TheEpicSquish 1d ago
Oh, your right! I didn't even realize my mistake. Thanks for the correction.
Regardless, more proper zones would be a correct call. :)5
u/doscruces Oceanside 1d ago
Understandable and I agree with you. Yellow or white curbs are needed in higher density neighborhoods to ensure taxis, delivery drivers, postal workers, and uber/lyft drivers can safely use the curb.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner Downtown San Diego 1d ago
For exactly this reason, we should normalize people (who are able bodied and able to do this) meeting delivery drivers at the street-level when they’re getting a delivery in a dense area.
It’s absolutely worth my time to go downstairs and save someone 10 minutes of trying to find a spot, or risking a ticket from double-parking, when I get something like food delivered.
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u/schumannator 1d ago
Lack of amenities - or removal of amenities - for the sake of “density” is not justification for bad planning. San Diego was built around car infrastructure for a vast majority of the county and the surrounding suburbs/neighborhoods. Can it migrate away from that? Yes. But we’ve got to build the good infrastructure before we can take away the bad one.
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u/SimplyCancerous 1d ago
Well it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg any time I want to go somewhere. I can barely afford having a car in this city, I don't need it being more expensive.
Alternatively, make public transit not garbage and I'll be a happy cat.
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u/chill_philosopher 1d ago
Try the park and rides! Transit can work pretty well it just takes a little more planning. A $5 round trip MTS fare is way cheaper than most parking around downtown.
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u/Ch1mu3l0 1d ago
Public transit isn’t garbage. It’s cheap and it goes nearly everywhere. You’re just making an excuse not to use it because you don’t want to take public transit.
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u/telekitties 1d ago
It does go nearly everywhere! BUT it takes 2 hours to get to a place you could easily drive to in 20 minutes. That’s definitely an area of improvement.
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u/Smoked_Bear Clairemont Mesa West 1d ago
The crown jewel trolley system also stops running after midnight.
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u/Hue_Janus_ 1d ago
Poor OP doesn’t realize that the city needs revenues to pay for the $534 million a year cost of the SDPD and no better way to do that aside from taxes than making sure those fees from violations increase.
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u/inabindbooks 1d ago
How about all these new apartment buildings be mandated to build a garage that fits at least one car per unit.
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u/Ok-Fortune2169 1d ago
China or Japan have genius parking structures.
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u/danquedynasty La Mesa 1d ago
Japan also are pretty restrictive about car ownership. Like in Tokyo if you can't prove that you have a dedicated parking spot at your residence you can't register your vehicle.
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u/MisRandomness 1d ago
Where I’m originally from, overnight street parking is not free. You have to buy a parking permit or you get ticketed. Maybe cities like San Diego need to start doing this to try reducing the amount of abandoned cars and people with multiple vehicles hogging up the street spots.
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u/Smoking_O 1d ago
Next time I'm feeling frustrated about not finding a free parking spot, I'm going to remember this post and TOTALLY de-frustrate myself.
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u/flaminpuffcornandsza 1d ago edited 1d ago
It just doesn’t make sense why they would turn a bunch of street parking to bike lanes when people do not bike in some neighborhoods since you need cars to get around from place to place…
edit - I meant in areas that are more spread out with not too much housing nearby - not like Hillcrest, Normal heights etc but i get it, it can change mentality
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u/virrk 1d ago
Problem is that the bike lanes are a network, and it takes a lot of building before you really see the return on investment.
The value of a network is determined by the number of connected nodes, which holds for a lot of different networks (road networks, bike infrastructure, computer networks, etc.) Value for bike lanes (and infrastructure) can effectively be thought of as usefulness. For things like bike networks it has been shown that use does not scale linearly, it scales non-linears with number of places people can go. It wont be used that much until the usefulness (connections of places you an go) reaches a high enough level. So to get to that point you have either build the whole network at once, which obviously isn't going to work. Or build it piecemeal until enough connections are made to suddenly get people to travel by bike.
Pretty much everywhere that made enough of an investment to reach that tipping point has seen a huge return on investment. Much better than the costs of free parking maintenance.
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
It's called induced demand.
Studies have shown that when cities invest in bike lanes, the number of cyclists often grows as people feel more comfortable and safe riding bikes.
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u/virrk 1d ago
That is part of it for bikes. More seen bikes and safe infrastructure, more people choose to ride. You're correct that has been shown to increase ridership.
But just the network having more connected nodes helps separately from those inducements to demand. If each neighborhood had separate streets unconnected to other neighborhoods, each neighborhood network has less value. We're only barely getting out of the separate unconnected networks of bike infrastructure stage.
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u/night-shark 1d ago
Are you saying that the city should wait until North Park, Hillcrest, and Bankers Hill is fully built up and tripled in density before adding more pedestrian and bike access?
Do you not think that as density in these areas increase, more people living there will opt to cycle or walk a lot more than they do now?
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u/SailorOfHouseT-bird Hillcrest 1d ago
On the other hand, it's almost like when there's protected bike lanes available, more people start biking.
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u/chill_philosopher 1d ago
not sure if you're trolling, but biking is an absolutely legitimate way to get around town (if it's safe, which is what the bike lanes are for)
more people biking means less cars creating traffic and hogging parking spots
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u/musclepupflex 16h ago
When they are planning to add 50,000 people to Hillcrest, an already dense area with terrible parking, and not build up good public transport, I will bitch. Build a better infrastructure to support that type of population.
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u/aphasial Gaslamp Quarter 1d ago
Watching the psychopaths with an extreme moral objection to people parking on the street is pretty funny.
There is nothing wrong with parking on the street, and meters and parking districts should be special exception areas, not the rule. The latter in particular should be reserved for highly residential areas that are overwhelmed by people who can't find enough parking for a nearby non-residential need (like around SDSU).
The answer to that latter situation is parking structures and/or a better parking plan for those regional draws... NOT REMOVING EVEN MORE PARKING, YOU MORONS.
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u/jamills102 1d ago
Same people that complain about there should be more parking spaces complain about rent costing too much
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u/chill_philosopher 1d ago
rent does cost too much
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u/Specific_Ocelot_4132 1d ago
Yes, but they are connected. Rent costs too much because we don’t build enough housing and we don’t build enough housing because residents block it because they are worried about parking. Meanwhile we need to drive everywhere because everything is too far apart because we don’t build densely enough, which is why we need parking…
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u/No-Thoughts-Daughter 1d ago
I can complain about two things at once… probably even more than two things 😎lol
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u/warranpiece Chula Vista 1d ago
I went to Mexico city, and there were these interesting little apparatuses that essentially a car would drive into....get raised up....and a car could park underneath it. It worked really well. I don't know why we seem so far behind in everything sometimes.
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u/thekarman1 1d ago
I thought they said people were leaving San Diego because of housing prices. This summer, I got convinced of the opposite.
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u/CowboyAntics 1d ago
What the fuck is a NIMBY?? Am I too old or too young?
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u/DasGespenstDerOper 1d ago
It stands for Not In My BackYard. (as opposed to YIMBY which is Yes In My BackYard)
It's people who are against new construction in their area, generally
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u/TheRealYM 1d ago
I always thought the term was funny as an insult. Like no shit people are like that? Why would anyone apologize for that? Yes give me the concrete hellscape milord, I hate natural beauty. I want my city to be as dense as possible and have 10 million people like Los Angeles, a city everyone here definitely loves
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u/MeeseChampion 1d ago
Restaurants expanded into the street during Covid and are still operating this way today. The street is public property and they aren’t paying to use it. These restaurants aren’t entitled to the 180 square foot of space outside of their business, and should have to pay for it.
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u/danquedynasty La Mesa 1d ago
.... businesses already do pay for that space they are using in public ROW like parklets. Under the Spaces as Places program, city charges $10 per square foot to $30 per square foot a year. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2022/01/07/permits-for-permanent-outdoor-dining-now-available-for-san-diego-restaurateurs/
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u/chill_philosopher 1d ago
and the increased tax revenue pays for more than what a meter or two would pay
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u/sticky_fingies_ 1d ago
Not arguing, but do want to note that restaurants do have to pay for their street space: https://www.sandiego.gov/development-services/permits/spaces-as-places
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u/MeeseChampion 1d ago
Including a $20k grant for following the rules! Crazy man you can make this stuff up
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
They do have to pay for it. It’s called a streetary. Bunch of permits and fees if you Google it.
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u/Donkey_Trader1 📬 1d ago
I don't mind paying for parking, but jeez I remember I was going to park in the lot by Hodads in Ocean Beach... it was going to cost $40 for 2 hours lol. The whole lot was empty!
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u/MexicanPikachu 1d ago
Gotta love the “it’s my way and if you don’t like it tough” mindset that both NIMBYs and YIMBYs have. Like tweedle dee and tweedle dum.
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u/Interest-Lumpy 1d ago
Exactly my thoughts. People love drawing lines in the sand when there's no need to.
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u/greeneyedpies 1d ago
I agree. although, one time I went to check out the Fit Athletic downtown. their memberships start at $140 a month and they have no parking. that was baffling to me honestly. my assumption is that most of the members just live downtown, but for such an expensive membership you would think they would at least have a small garage or lot
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u/Carl_The_Sagan 1d ago
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but we need more metered parking, especially in areas where street parking is difficult
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u/pandesoldynomite 1d ago
Well, we SHOULD be entitled to park in our own driveways without being ticketed for obstructing the sidewalk right of way. A lot of houses in San Diego don’t have the sidewalk right up against the road side so it cuts our driveways too short to actually park in them fully. Surely, the city can redesign them and free up a lot of street parking.
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u/standard_cog 1d ago
We could remove environmental protections to get more parking, make every other vehicle a huge truck that can’t see bikes, and then fill our public transportation with mentally unstable homeless people and drug addicts?
That way nobody gets what they want and all options suck.
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u/Ok_Breakfast_1989 1d ago
Yes we are entitled to street parking. You can take public transport or walk if you want.
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u/Jmoney1088 San Marcos 1d ago
Where does it say that the public is entitled to street parking? lol
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u/Ok_Breakfast_1989 1d ago
The post said we’re not, I disagree. No parking means less traffic for small businesses and restaurants. Screw paying $15-30 for an Uber both ways to spend money with a business. I’d rather tip the server or spend more elsewhere.
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u/altkarlsbad 1d ago
No parking means less traffic for small businesses and restaurants.
Lots of variables involved in this discussion, but the vast majority of studies on this topic show the exact opposite. Nice places to drive through are not nice places to visit.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner Downtown San Diego 1d ago
Then you can either take public transit or stick to the parking lot oceans of suburban strip malls.
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u/BildoBaggens 📬 1d ago
I'd rather just not tip and get to and from for a cheap enough cost that is convenient for me. I'm all about spending my money wisely.
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u/LizardBurn0124 Local Archaeologist ⛏ 1d ago
A third option: Move back where you came from?
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u/LocallySourcedWeirdo Rancho Santa Fe 1d ago
Or maybe the parking obsessed can go move to a rural area where real estate is less expensive and there is plenty of storage space for their vehicle.
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u/BildoBaggens 📬 1d ago
They just need to move east of the 15 or north of the 52. Tons of parking out in suburbia. Only takes about a month to forget about the street shitters all over downtown.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner Downtown San Diego 1d ago
Imagine the balls required to be mad about San Diego getting more dense and thinking “go back where you came from” is a convincing argument.
I’m sure anyone who thinks like that will be happy out in Alpine or Dulzura where they can have all the parking they want!
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u/Jmoney1088 San Marcos 1d ago
This is simply not an option. Time to get over it.
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u/Butch-Jeffries 1d ago
Sure it’s an option.
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u/Jmoney1088 San Marcos 1d ago
No one is going to "move back where they came from" just because some NIMBY told them to lmao
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u/LizardBurn0124 Local Archaeologist ⛏ 1d ago
I have parking. I don't have this problem.
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u/Jmoney1088 San Marcos 1d ago
Then why chime in with "move back where you came from"
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u/LizardBurn0124 Local Archaeologist ⛏ 1d ago
Because people who are non-natives shouldn't be dictating to us natives how we should handle things in our own city.
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
Yes. Agreed. Let us consult with the Kumeyaay people who have lived in this area for thousands of years. Dear LizardBurn0124, respected elder of the Kumeyaay people, what should San Diego do about street parking?
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u/OdysseyAdventures City Heights 1d ago
"I have parking."
What does that even mean? 😂
In order for a car to have any utility it will need to leave your driveway and travel to another place where you do not have free parking.1
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u/AdvertisingFun8747 1d ago
I’d argue that with the shitty (or lack thereof) public transit it should be the cities job to supply parking. If there’s no other way to get around then there should be a solution available
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u/saracup59 1d ago
At least people in NY know that only some people can own a car. In San Diego, a car is issued with every birth certificate.
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u/BackFar4934 1d ago
Or.......instead of parking, the city could invest in better public transit. More lines on the trolly. Or building homes on top of businesses. Literally anything but add more parking.