Our current parking problem
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Many areas of Long Beach are already so parking impacted that people must often drive around for over 30 minutes to find parking. We’ve heard many ways that our parking problems affect people’s lives. People cannot leave their parking space evenings or on the weekends; parking tickets or parking spaces are expensive; they cannot have friends or relatives visit; landlords can’t park when servicing their property and cannot keep tenants; caregivers can’t find parking; the buses don’t go everywhere we need to go; many people cannot get to work on buses…
We also heard many ideas to improve parking. We worked on some of those ideas but quickly realized that the City's plans were about to eliminate far more parking than the small amounts we could find at this point. This is why we are focused on specific actions now.
Why a parking study?
A parking study provides the specific information that city leaders can use to create some new policies. There are a few new Planning and City council members who have become concerned about the negative impacts from the parking issues so there is some small hope that they will follow the recommendations of a professional parking engineer. A comprehensive study and plan are needed. If the City has that, some improvements can be made quickly while funding is gathered to make other improvements.