Entering its second year of operations, Placer County’s North Lake Tahoe Parking Management Program took another step forward this week with the Board of Supervisors' approval of a series of recommendations designed to help local businesses.
The board approved an amendment to the county’s parking ordinance to allow for paid parking and residential permit parking zones in Kings Beach, with changes planned to take effect this summer. The board also approved updates to the parking fine schedule and established a parking fee schedule, both set to take effect April 3.
This week’s changes include parking adjustments along Brook Avenue in Kings Beach, which include adding a 15-minute commercial loading zone on the north side of the street and making the remaining spots two-hour parking from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 1 through Oct. 31. The north side will transition to a snow removal and storage zone during the winter months. The board also adjusted the parking time limit for the six parallel spots on the south side of the street to two hours.
“One of our biggest challenges is recreation visitors taking up premier parking spaces near our local businesses all day,” said Assistant Director of Public Works Kevin Bell. “We received a lot of feedback from the community about time limited parking in the commercial core and implementing increased enforcement in these areas will help right away. Our model of escalating parking fines has also proven effective in improving parking turnover and getting to compliance.”
Last year, Placer County introduced paid parking to the Kings Beach community through a pilot program at Christmas Tree Parking Lot from Aug. 6 to Sept. 30. The lot had 27 paid parking spaces during that time and has since returned to free parking for residents and visitors. The county found occupancy for the paid lot dropped from 82% to 52% during the pilot program and 89% of pay transactions were completed by credit card, which emphasized the importance of alternative cashless payment methods.
The county recorded $9,445.43 in net revenue from the pilot program, which covered all direct program costs and a portion of staffing costs.
“We received a lot of positive feedback from this program,” said project consultant Julie Dixon. “People said the pay stations were easy to use, the pricing was fair and accessible, which is important, and we had great use of signage and on-site engagement from our staff and parking enforcement officers.”
The pilot program only featured flat-rate daily parking fees. The county anticipates using hourly paid parking throughout the region moving forward to ensure short-term parkers can be accommodated. Staff also noted a mobile payment option could improve future user experience and Spanish interpretations should be added to lot signage and pay stations in the future.
Moving forward, the program will prioritize the following:
Dixon added the program will soon create and post wayfinding signs throughout Kings Beach to distinguish public and paid parking lots and locations. Program staff are also considering employee parking exemptions and potential resident permit parking policies to reduce spillover parking in neighborhoods.
This upcoming summer, program staff will continue to provide educational opportunities for the community and visitors, but they will begin shifting focus to increased and more consistent parking enforcement within the Kings Beach area. To do this, two parking enforcement vehicles will patrol using automated license plate reader cameras, which are currently used by California Highway Patrol vehicles.
Staff are now able to patrol common parking areas, monitor, capture and analyze license plate information, which is hashed and anonymized to ensure private information is not tracked or kept on any county or vendor servers.
Paid parking will also return this summer at Christmas Tree Parking Lot on the south side of state Route 28 and be implemented at Brook Lot on the north side of Brook Avenue between Bear Street and Racoon Street.
Placer County also continues to hold conversations with private businesses to potentially establish future paid parking agreements with the county on their properties. Any potential agreements would become part of the county’s enforcement region.
Learn more about parking management here: https://www.placer.ca.gov/8857/Parking-Management-Program.