Downtown Parking Rates to Increase

City officials said Monday that a number of increases in the price of public parking in Glendale’s downtown area will take effect June 5 as part of a plan to make more parking available for shoppers.

The rate increases, along with new restrictions on parking time limits in several public lots, will encourage short-term parking in areas close to shops and businesses.

They also will provide “an incentive to encourage employee use of lots which are a little further away,” said Jano Baghdanian, the city’s traffic and transportation administrator.

Under the plan, which was approved by the City Council earlier this year, on-street parking spaces will cost 60 cents an hour, an increase of 10 cents.

Off-street parking in metered public lots with a two- or three-hour limit will jump from 30 cents to 50 cents an hour, and from 30 cents to 40 cents an hour in lots with a 10-hour limit.

City officials said that merchants along north Brand Boulevard have long complained that there is inadequate parking, and that people who work downtown take many of the public spaces.

Backers of the increases, including the Glendale Economic Advisory Committee, say people will park for shorter periods and there will be more spaces for customers.

The rate increases, coupled with the extension of meter operation by two hours to 8 p.m. in many lots, is expected to produce an extra $404,000 a year in parking revenues, city officials said.

That money may enable the city to issue bonds or borrow funds to build two parking structures that have been proposed, one on south Maryland Avenue and another on north Orange Street, officials said.