The city of San Diego is making parking in Balboa city-owned lots free again starting next year. But the San Diego Zoo could still charge non-city residents to park.
Now its creating questions about where visitors will choose to leave their cars, and how that could impact other park institutions.
Matt Jawlik, CFO of the San Diego Natural History Museum says paid parking has already taken a toll on the museum, with daytime visitation down 25% and attendance at free events down 30%.
“It's really a strong indication that people are looking for ways to enjoy the park when it's free and accessible,” Jawlik says.
The city reversed course on paid parking in May as part of a legal settlement that also dropped a voter initiative over the city’s trash fees.
“It played out exactly as we had feared,” Jawlik says. “Hundreds of thousands fewer people were coming to the park and enjoying institutions.”
But there’s one big exception to the city’s new free-parking policy. The San Diego Zoo will continue operating paid parking under its existing lease agreement with the City.
City residents can register their license plates online in advance to get free parking but the Zoo can use that information to distinguish local visitors from people coming in from outside the city.
That means non-city residents could still pay, something some Zoo visitors tell me doesn’t make sense.
“It should almost be like a perk you know? To bring more visitors here,” Arizona Zoo park visitor Kore Mckinney says
The Zoo tells ABC 10 News that half of its net parking revenue goes to the city to support park operations and improvements and says it will continue assessing its parking program after January 1st.
But the Natural History Museum is now worried about something else.
If Savvy Zoo visitors decide to avoid the fee, the museum worries they could instead fill free lots near the park’s other attractions that have already taken a big hit in the last seven months.
“Balboa Park is an ecosystem,” Jawlik says. “There's dozens of different entities who play a role in supporting this ecosystem, and the zoo is a big one of those. We all have a responsibility to ensure the health of the ecosystem and that the park continues to thrive, so we're optimistic and hopeful that the zoo will recognize their responsibility.”
Jawlik says the museum plans to talk with the Zoo in the coming weeks, hoping they can find common ground and keep the park’s ecosystem working together, rather than having parking pulling it apart.
