San Diego’s recent efforts to boost city revenue by expanding parking enforcement — including with new meters in residential areas — are prompting public outcry, vandalism of meters and calls for the city to retreat. City officials have already made some concessions on new paid parking within Balboa Park and have agreed to back away from plans for Sunday enforcement. But residents in neighborhoods that are getting new meters want more concessions. Among the hotspots for the backlash are Sixth Avenue along Balboa Park in Bankers Hill and the neighborhoods of Kensington, Talmadge, Normal Heights and City Heights. Residents there are protesting the city’s move to cut down on free street parking they’ve relied on for years by installing meters, while declining to offer a permit option to residents. While the backlash has mostly come in the form of complaints at City Council meetings and on social media sites like NextDoor, there has also been some vandalism of meters and parking payment kiosks. So many meters and kiosks have been vandalized near Balboa Park that Crime Stoppers last week offered a $1,000 reward for tips that lead to arrests. Total damage to nearby kiosks has been estimated at $77,500. Residents in Bankers Hill, where parking kiosks were added in November on Sixth Avenue between Elm and Upas streets, say the change has dramatically hurt their quality of life. “It’s completely ridiculous,” said Ashley Dudley, who lives on Sixth in one of roughly seven or eight residential complexes there that have no parking garage or private parking spaces. “To park in front of my own building right now I have to pay $900 a month, and I have to move my car every four hours.” Dudley says $900 is what she would need to pay if she fed the kiosk the city rate of $2.50 an hour every day for a month during the city’s hours of enforcement, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. While a separate parking garage would be less convenient than parking in front of her home, Dudley could likely secure a spot in a Bankers Hill garage for between $200 and $250 a month. Dudley said residential permits would be an obvious answer and that most of the people she’s talked to would be happy to pay a reasonable fee. But she said city officials have mostly ignored emails from the neighborhood. Dudley, who has lived on Sixth near Olive Street since 2011, said the impact goes far beyond her street to include most of Bankers Hill, because people who previously parked on Sixth now search for free spots elsewhere. “If I can park four or five blocks away for free, that’s what I’m trying to do,” she said. City officials have stressed the need to add parking kiosks on Sixth in conjunction with paid parking within the park. If they hadn’t added the meters, visitors to the park would monopolize free spots on Sixth. A vandalized parking payment kiosk is seen on 6th Avenue across from Balboa Park on Feb. 6, 2026. (Rob Nikolewski / The San Diego Union-Tribune) This reasoning has also prompted the addition of new meters on stretches of Park Boulevard, Juniper Street, Balboa Drive and other streets near the park. On the possibility of residential permits similar to those available to Mission Hills residents who live near that neighborhood’s hospital cluster, officials say residents in Bankers Hill may not meet the city’s criteria — that they are severely impacted by all-day commuter parking generated by a nearby facility or institution. A separate neighborhood outcry erupted recently when the city sent letters to merchants and residents in Kensington, Talmadge, Normal Heights and City Heights notifying them that parking enforcement would expand this month. City officials have touted the new enforcement there as something that would do more than just generate millions for the city. “This effort is intended to promote turnover and increase availability of on-street parking,” the city’s Transportation Department said in the letter announcing the expansion. “This change will provide better management of parking and can make it easier for visitors and business patrons to find parking along the street.” The idea of greater turnover and availability of spots is appealing to merchants, said David Harding, board president for the Adams Avenue Business Association. But merchants also have concerns about how the addition of another new fee will affect shoppers, as well as about the challenges paid parking creates for their workers and the city’s rules. Harding said the four-hour time limit creates problems for hair salons, where customers sometimes stay longer than that. And he said it makes no sense to enforce through 8 p.m. when most businesses close at 5 p.m. “The reactions were very mixed,” said Harding, describing parking as an issue merchants have wrestled with for years. “There were passionate arguments on both sides.” The association, which has experimented in the past with shuttles and valet parking, ultimately chose not to take a formal position on the new meters. A few blocks south on El Cajon Boulevard in City Heights, the reaction has been more negative. “While the proposed meters on the boulevard may be appropriate for approximately 30% of the designated areas, the remaining installations appear to disregard the findings of parking studies,” Tootie Thomas, executive director of the Boulevard merchant association, wrote in a recent letter to the city. “Implementing these meters in an underserved area creates an undue burden on a challenging business climate.” Among other residents, the reactions have been almost universally negative. “It seems like every opportunity to raise money gets seized upon by the city,” said Christian Anderson, who has lived for 25 years on Kensington Drive near where new meters will be installed. Anderson said the change won’t only affect residents on streets where meters will be added, stressing that there will also be a reverberating impact throughout the area as meters force residents to look for free parking a few blocks away. Bethany Harmann of Normal Heights was more blunt in a recent NextDoor post. “Are they really going to make people pay the meter in front of their home all day?” she asked. “This is crazy.” Tedd Koll of Kensington suggested on NextDoor that the turnover sought by city officials and merchants could be achieved by creating enforced 15-minute and 2-hour parking zones without charging to park. A pay-by-plate parking sign in Bankers Hill in San Diego on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Kristian Carreon / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Similar backlash has prompted city officials to make several concessions on paid parking in Balboa Park since it was first proposed last spring. They agreed this month to make more lots free for city residents. And the strong opposition to paid parking in Balboa Park has prompted City Council members to retreat from efforts to add paid parking or entry fees to Mission Bay Park and city beaches. The council also retreated in January from plans to expand parking enforcement to Sundays. That decision was prompted by concerns about how a related residential permit program would work. City spokesperson Nicole Darling said Friday that new meters will be rolled out in Mid-City in two phases, with El Cajon Boulevard getting them before Adams Avenue. On El Cajon Boulevard, the city’s traffic operations team started installing the signage and striping changes this week and installation is expected the week of Feb. 23. “The goal is to get this phase completed by the end of February or the first week of March,” said Darling, adding that all signage will be covered until the meters are activated. Adams Avenue will be next. “We will start with the traffic operations team implementing the signage and striping changes in mid-March, with the parking meter operations staff following them with the meter installations shortly after,” she said. “The goal is to finish this phase by the end of March.” Metered parking will be added on El Cajon Boulevard from 29th Street/Kansas Street to 37th Street, on Adams Avenue from Hamilton Street to 42nd Street, on Park Place from Kensington Drive to Marlborough Drive, on Terrace Drive from Adams to Park Place, on Kensington Drive from Adams to Park Place and on Marlborough Drive from the alley north of Adams to Park Place. Meters will be added for less than one block on several streets and avenues right where they cross Adams: Felton, 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th, Hawley, Bancroft and Wilson. Anyone with information on kiosk vandalism cases can call San Diego police at (619) 744-9500 or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at 888-580-8477. For details, visit sdcrimestoppers.org. ...read more read less