Residents and workers in San Diego\u2019s Kensington neighborhood are voicing frustration as parking meters along Adams Avenue officially go live Monday.<\/p>\n
The paid parking program is part of the city\u2019s effort to raise revenue while addressing San Diego\u2019s $118 million budget deficit. City leaders say the money collected through parking meters stays within the communities where it is generated and helps fund infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n
The meters and enforcement signs are already in place along Adams Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the finances, the inconvenience, you name it all,\u201d said Peggy Stone, who works in Kensington.<\/p>\n
Stone said the added cost will hurt people already struggling financially.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just a terrible hassle for everyone and expensive. People are already hurting financially, really hurting financially, and they do not need the extra expense,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n
Residents also worry the meters could discourage people from visiting the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s creating another round of discouragement within the community,\u201d said Kensington resident Michael Penny, thinking ahead of the struggle his friends and family will face when they visit him.<\/p>\n
According to the city, additional parking fees are one of the ways San Diego is increasing revenue to help manage its budget shortfall.<\/p>\n
In a social media post, Mayor Todd Gloria said parking meter revenue has delivered \u201creal results\u201d in areas including Mid-City, which includes Normal Heights and Kensington.<\/p>\n
The city said nearly 2,000 streetlights have been fixed and more than 3,000 potholes repaired within the four parking meter zones that include Downtown, Mid-City, Pacific Beach and Uptown.<\/p>\n
Kensington Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera also voiced support for the program.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m “proud to support this effort because making San Diego work for San Diegans means putting public dollars toward the needs people feel every day,\u201d Elo-Rivera said.<\/p>\n
Still, some residents believe the city should look elsewhere for additional revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could appreciate the want to nickel and dime the community in regards to trying to find gaps where they might be, but in all reality, I think that they need to be looking elsewhere,\u201d Penny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plenty of wealthy people in the city that they could probably tap, rather than what are increasingly the working poor,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n
The city has also launched a sticker campaign seen on the meters emphasizing that parking meter revenue stays within the neighborhood where it is collected.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents and workers in San Diego\u2019s Kensington neighborhood are voicing frustration as parking meters along Adams Avenue officially…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":803967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,11883,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-803966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-todd-gloria","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116592826652650510","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}