Searching for Solutions to San Diego Downtown Parking

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 17, 2008 at 11:52 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

A downtown workshop later today will tackle the problem of parking -- or the lack of it -- in San Diego's urban core. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

A downtown workshop later today will tackle the problem of parking -- or the lack of it -- in San Diego's urban core. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The goal is to come up with a plan so people living, working or visiting downtown San Diego won’t have to spend hours driving round and round looking for a place to park.

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By the year 2030 there'll be 90,000 people living downtown, three times as many as now.

Condo resident Gary Smith is on the Downtown Parking Management Group. He says units built before 2000 didn't come with parking.

Smith: That was an idea that urban planners had, that if we do not provide parking on site, people will have to walk, and that will provide feet on the street.

The Downtown Community Plan requires only one parking space per new condo. Extra spaces can cost $2,000.

San Diego's Downtown Redevelopment Agency is talking about a new kinds of parking meters and making better use of existing parking structures, some of which empty out and close down at night.

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Alison St John, KPBS News

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.