New on-street parking kiosks are now up and running in downtown San Luis Obispo.
“I think it's easier to use than the old one," one Morro Bay resident said.
“I think it's getting better. Overall, I think it just needs to be communicated more," one SLO resident said about all the recent parking changes.
Even after the changes to rates and parking technology downtown, there are still some small business owners who see parking as a challenge that keeps locals away.
“Parking is always, I feel like, going to be an issue," Hands Gallery owner Sara Vaskov said. "I just want to make it as easy as I can for my customers to come downtown and park and support all of these amazing businesses we have down here.”
But regular or frequent downtown visitors might be adjusting to improvements like new on-street pay stations.
“It's also really well lit. The other ones we were having trouble with people being able to see, and what it was even saying," Vaskov explained.
Now, the new kiosks have brighter screens, a backlight and a touchscreen to improve accessibility.
“We really worked on design of the screen flow to make it as easy as possible so that our high-tech customers and our low-tech that maybe just don't like to use these kind of things, it's easy either way," SLO City Parking Services Manager Donna King explained in a demonstration.
The Junk Girls storefront off Monterey St. is hearing fewer complaints now after the installation of the kiosks.
“I do find that the complaints are getting lessened as we go further and people are more educated on what's available," General Manager Daniel Glidden said.
King hears all the noise and sees all the comments talking about how locals don’t come downtown anymore but that doesn’t stop her and the team from continuing to invite that feedback so that they can continue making improvements.
“We just really work on hearing what they're saying and making any improvements possible," King said. "As I said, so far the feedback has been overall positive with our changes.”
The changes, like the new pay stations, are the end of the Technology Roadmap.
It was introduced in May of 2024 along with rate decreases as a result of community and downtown business feedback. Other things rolled out include going to one parking app from three, making more parking permits available, a unified gate system for garages, and lastly, improved on-street parking pay stations.
“We did lower street parking and we lowered garage parking," Vaskov stated. "I do everything I can to make it easy for people to come down here, so hopefully those changes that we've made have helped.”
With the holidays coming up, there will be free parking days in the parking garages on Thanksgiving Day weekend and every Sunday through December. Many businesses recommend shoppers use the parking garages due to the cheaper rates and more accessibility.
