Fifteen minutes is enough time to park downtown, pick up a take-out food order and get back to your car and pay nothing.

That’s what city staff members tried to tell the Santa Barbara City Council as part of its plan to reduce free parking time on downtown city streets and dramatically overhaul the city’s parking program.

The proposal crashed and burned.

In an election year, the proposal was likely doomed from the start. But councilmembers cited issues of equity, and an opposition to a policy that could discourage people from traveling downtown.

The proposal comes at a time when the city is working on a State Street Master Plan, considering a housing project at Paseo Nuevo, and reeling from a loss of downtown workers after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina, journalist Josh Molina explains the Top 10 reasons why the parking proposal failed. (Hint, it was a really bad idea). Click on the YouTube link below to watch the full Top 10 list on YouTube.

The City of Santa Barbara Public Works staff wanted to charge people to park downtown on a “pay-by-plate” basis, using a mobile payment app, a website or a self-serve kiosk.

The fees were proposed to generate an estimated $2.5 million. The first 15 minutes would be free, and it would cost $1.50 every hour after that. There would be no daily maximum.

In addition, in surface parking lots, the city wanted to reduce the 75-minute free period to 15 minutes free, and charge $1.50 for every 30 minutes after that. There would be no daily maximum charge.

In parking garages, the city wanted to drop the free time from 75 minutes to 60 minutes, and charge $2 for every hour after that. For garages, there would be a $10 maximum.

The city also wanted to offer $70 monthly parking permits to downtown employees to park in the city garages, to reduce the number of people parking on city streets. The current monthly rate is $145 to $165.

Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.