Metro’s Gold Line riders will have to pay to park in Arcadia and Duarte

Metro riders who park at the Arcadia and Duarte stations before jumping on the Gold Line will have to pay a daily rate of $3 starting Monday. If commuters are in search of free parking, the nearby Sierra Madre Villa station is still available.

The transit agency plans to offer monthly passes for $59 after it has assessed paid parking occupancy at the two stations. But to start, weekday riders who use the stations will pay $60 each month to park, in addition to the $1.75 they pay for one-way rides.

“That’s going to be a big difference for people that are driving,” Andre Canarena told KTLA-TV Channel 5. “That’s a lot of money out of our pockets.”

Metro operates 87 parking lots in the Los Angeles area and has implemented paid parking at its busiest stations since 2017.

Including the Duarte and Arcadia lots, Metro operates 19 paid parking stations. That includes lots in Crenshaw, North Hollywood, Hawthorne and Lennox.

Free spaces are still offered at regional park and ride lots throughout Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, but travelers eventually will have to pay at 54 Metro-operated lots.

“This program initiative is completely about parking management and retaining parking transit resources for transit users,” said Frank Ching, Metro’s director of parking management. “It’s never once about generating more revenue. It costs us money to manage the program. That $3 is so minimal a day.”

Ching said the program was rolled out at stations that had reached a parking capacity of 75% or more with the intention of preventing non-transit riders from taking up spaces in the lot. The revenue collected from parking will be used to offset the cost of the program, he said. Any monetary leftovers will go into Metro’s general fund.

Metro riders can pay for parking at a kiosk or through Metro’s parking app, using Zone 309 for Arcadia and Zone 312 for Duarte.

colleen.shalby@latimes.com

@cshalby