Parking in the Park: A Community Conundrum

   By Roger Showley

Balboa Park is the city’s “crown jewel” but it sure is a challenge to get there, get around and get out. The Balboa Park Committee of 100 is monitoring the issue, particularly when it touches C100’s top priority, the restoration and activation of the Palisades area south of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion.

A score of studies since the current master park plan was approved in 1989 have addressed the parking problem. But the only major increase came when the San Diego Zoo built a 650-space employee garage in 2015, freeing up spaces in its lot for visitors, who are not yet charged for parking.

In January 2025 a city consultant, Fehr & Peers of Walnut Creek, submitted a study of citywide parking demand at regional parks and in parking meter districts. The Balboa Park Committee reviewed it in March.

The key recommendations on the park included:

• Manage parking demand with a combination of time limits, a parking guidance system and potentially paid parking.

• Institute  a mix of two- and four-hour time limits in the highest-demand parking lots. Remote parking facilities would remain free to serve visitors, employees and volunteers.

• In the San Diego Zoo lot, apply a flat rate to peak weekend hours.

Mayor Todd Gloria followed up with a proposed budget in May that called for charging for parking in Balboa Park, starting in January 2026. He projected six months of income at  $11 million, although how that revenue is to be spent is not discussed.

Many details remain on how parking charges would  work — such as the hourly rate ($2.50 has been mentioned by several city officials), parking meter equipment, which lots would remain free and how the existing free shuttle system might be expanded.

It’s worth noting that paid parking once existed year-round. It was instituted in 1962 to serve the huge crowds going to Charger football games at Balboa Stadium. New parking lots were built on the former Navy Hospital golf course at Inspiration Point, east of the Federal Building (today’s Comic-Con Museum) and across newly-built Interstate 5 next to the stadium.

Parking rates were set at $1 for special events; 50 cents for high school and City College events; 35 cents for daily parking, $5 per month and $13 per semester for student parking.

Today, parking is charged for certain lots for some special events, like December Nights, but otherwise there are no fees for any lots or street parking within park boundaries.

But charging again for parking won’t solve the park’s access and circulation problems. In 2021 architect Jack Carpenter led a task force for the Friends of Balboa Park (now Forever Balboa Park) to lay out a long-term approach. Only a few of its recommendations have been implemented so far.

Some highlights from that report:

• In the next three years: Upgrade existing lots and street parking with more diagonal spaces (that’s been done on Balboa Drive in West Mesa); extend no-parking hours starting at 9 a.m. to discourage “poachers” (those workers who park in the park and walk to their jobs); install variable-pricing “smart” parking meters on the east side of Sixth Avenue and along Park Boulevard to encourage turnover; set aside areas for ride-sharing pickups and dropoffs, especially near popular destinations; improve lighting to make nighttime parking safer; install parking sensors to alert drivers where to find available spaces via a smart-phone app (the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership has installed sensors in the Alcazar Garden lot as a test of such a system).

• In the next five years:  Install time limits and issue parking permits for nonpark users, such as Navy Hospital staff, nonpark workers and students, faculty and staff at City College and San Diego High School; expand park shuttle routes; improve wayfinding signs (a new park sign manual offers many designs to aid visitors); create a special bus route serving the park; and encourage park employees and volunteers to park in nonprime spots and shuttle to their destinations.

• In subsequent years:  Build new garages, as already approved, at the Spreckels Organ lot and underground along Park Boulevard as called for in the zoo’s 2003 Promenade Plan, and consider more garages elsewhere; extend the San Diego Trolley into the park; and cover sections of Interstate 5 to create more parkland and parking lots.

The city’s budget crisis would end free parking in most of Balboa Park, but what will be the impact on the hundreds of employees who work in the park daily, let alone hundreds of volunteers who contribute to the park’s vitality?

Photo: Fehr & Peers