Hourly Parking Fee Hiked to $1

The city of San Diego’s budget crunch has not yet reduced it to scraping for pennies, but it will begin eagerly pocketing extra quarters as a result of a 25-cent-an-hour increase in parking meter rates approved by the City Council.

By a 7-2 vote, the council raised parking rates from the current 75 cents per hour to $1, a move estimated to increase parking revenue by about $770,000 annually, to $4.2 million.

Although the higher rates will take effect in about a month, city officials explained that it will take about four months to convert all of the city’s 4,800 parking meters.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who joined Councilwoman Judy McCarty in opposing the increase, complained that the 25-cent hourly hike is ill-timed in light of the lingering recession. But city administrators noted that, even with the increase, San Diego’s hourly parking rate will be only half that of other major California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.