Parking meters are coming to San Ysidro. Here’s where

San Diego city officials plan to roll out paid parking meters in San Ysidro as early as this summer, staff said during a stakeholder meeting last week.

The city plans to install 286 meters in the following areas: 

• East San Ysidro Boulevard between Border Village Road to Camino De La Plaza, both sides. 67 spaces.
• Border Village Road between East San Ysidro Boulevard (north) to East San Ysidro Boulevard (south), both sides. 138 spaces.
• Front Street between Border Village Road to the end of cul-de-sac, south side. 7 spaces.
• Bolton Hall Road between East San Ysidro Boulevard to Border Village Road, south side. 4 spaces.
• Louisiana Street between East San Ysidro Boulevard to the end of cul-de-sac, both sides. 4 spaces.
• Virginia Avenue between East San Ysidro Boulevard to Border Village Road, both sides. 40 spaces.
• East San Ysidro Boulevard between Willow Road and East Park Avenue, south side. 26 spaces.

Meters would go live in early July, officials said. 

City spokesperson Leslie Wolf Branscomb said they would charge for parking between 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. A four-hour limit would be imposed.

The city is considering charging $2.50 per hour at the meters.

The meters are part of an effort to increase turnover of parking spaces near businesses. A past study confirmed a gripe many locals express: People leave their cars parked for days on the border town’s streets while visiting Mexico.

Updated data shows more than one-third of the vehicles violate the area’s existing two-hour maximum rule for parking. Along unregulated street segments in the business corridor, vehicles stay parked for more than five hours on average. 

“This is not normal parking behavior for a commercial area in which businesses do want the turnover. They want people to come in, do the business and leave,” Ahmad Erikat, program manager with the city’s Transportation Department, said during the meeting.

Erikat said the city plans to send the required notices to all residents and businesses within 250 feet of where the meters will be installed.

City staff on Wednesday visited a joint meeting between members of the Small Business Advisory Board’s San Ysidro Business Improvement District Advisory Committee and the San Ysidro Community and Economic Development Corp. Board of Directors. 

When asked, city staff said they did not survey the businesses about the proposed parking meter location. Some stakeholders raised concerns over the city’s engagement with the local business community.

“It’s really, really important that we have an additional voice there because it affects us, the businesses, in this area,” Jose Alfredo Ripa told city staff during the meeting. He serves as president of the San Ysidro Community and Economic Development Corp., which was recently created to replace previous managers of the local business improvement district. The district will oversee parking revenue.

“I hope that you don’t start this before hearing from us, from now on for the next days or so,” he said.

Stakeholders want to know how much of the area’s workforce are drivers parking for long periods of time, for instance. However, Erikat said the district will operate like the city’s other metered-parking zones and that there will be no special accommodations for employees.

“We anticipate vehicles who wish to stay for longer periods than four hours will use one of the many off-street paid parking lots in the area,” Wolf Branscomb, the city spokesperson, later said in an email.

Staff said during the Wednesday meeting that they anticipate extra parking enforcement in the area once the meters are installed.

Revenue collected from the San Ysidro parking meters must be spent on business improvements in that defined zone, aside from administrative costs. The city earlier this year changed its policy for community parking districts after raising concerns over what officials said was some districts’ inappropriate use of the funds. 

San Diego has seven parking districts across the city that generate millions of dollars annually. Along with San Ysidro, officials also established a parking district in Kearny Mesa, where they have yet to install meters.

The districts came after the city faced a decrease in parking revenue citywide since the COVID-19 pandemic. San Diego officials have overhauled parking rules, including rate increases, amid their efforts to address ongoing deficits.