Drivers will see -- and need -- change

For years, shoppers along Pasadena’s South Lake Avenue enjoyed one of the best deals in town: free curbside parking.

But beginning in January, patrons of the area’s popular boutiques and big-name chain stores are advised to bring along some extra change for the newly installed parking meters. The cost: $1 for one hour.

The new meters will stretch from California Boulevard to Green Street.

“The area is becoming so commercialized,” said Carolina Hernandez, who for two years has worked at the avenue’s Tip-Top Cleaners. “What people love is the old-fashioned, small-town feel and not paying parking everywhere here was part of the charm. But it was inevitable.”

A few blocks away at the L.A. Gym Equipment store, fitness consultant Will Santillan captured the consensus of shoppers on the new parking meters.

“There are pros and cons,” Santillan said. “I mean some people will be mad no matter what because you have to pay, but then the money raised could be used for keeping up the place and making sure some people don’t hog the spots.”

Along South Lake Avenue are several street signs emblazoned with large white arrows that direct drivers to parking lots off the avenue; some businesses have “parking in rear” signs on their front window.

But those signs have done little to alleviate congestion, said Rhonda Bennett, who is property manager of The Commons shopping complex and president of the South Lake Business Committee.

“The street parking does not yield much turnover, so we decided to back the city’s proposal to adding the meters,” she said. “A lot of people were circling the block and bringing traffic into the surrounding neighborhoods.” Parking poachers taking up spaces past the permitted time were also a problem, Bennett said.

The City Council voted this month in favor of the meters after four years of studies found that as more pay lots opened in the area, shoppers would clamor for free curbside parking, and clogged streets would be the result.

Holly Imler, a management analyst in the city’s Transportation Department, said the solution was to install new meters to keep the spots on the street for short-term parking and discourage those parking beyond the hour limit. The city will spend up to $135,000 to purchase and install 19 new meters.

The meters are expected to generate $197,000 annually, which will help fund street maintenance, Imler said.

“We’re basically doing what they do in Old Pasadena,” she said. “The agreement is to put the money back into South Lake Avenue, to keep it up and keep it special.”

If the meters generate enough money, the city could put some of the funds toward building a parking garage in the future, Imler said.

Longtime Pasadena resident Pat Fredrickson, 49, worried that the new meters would hurt South Lake Avenue businesses. Residents who just need to briefly pop into a store or cafe also would be inconvenienced, he said.

“I think people here are pretty respectful of the rules,” Fredrickson said while taking a break from reading a newspaper at Borders. “I think it’s only going to create more headaches for us.”

Pasadena is not the only city looking to purchase new meters. Los Angeles’ Transportation Department urged the city to replace its 40,000 meters as soon as possible, according to a report last month.

Revenue for the city is down $1.6 million in the last two years, largely due to theft, the report found, and the city has had to re-key 1,000 meters in the last four months because people keep breaking into them.

When the decades of free parking along South Lake Avenue in Pasadena comes to an end next year, Imler said the city would deploy “ambassadors” for two weeks after the meters are installed to “inform and remind” drivers of the new curb fees.

Brett Nausha, a longtime Pasadena resident, said the new meters would not affect her South Lake Avenue shopping experience.

“There is never any street parking anyway,” said Nausha, who was on her way to have lunch with her husband at Corner Bakery cafe.

“The meters won’t be so bad; it’s pretty typical anywhere else you go nowadays.”

francisco.varaorta@latimes.com