Free Parking for Holiday Shoppers Saturday

The City of Oakland announced Thursday it will let holiday shoppers park for free on the next two Saturdays. From the city's press release:

In the spirit of the holidays and to stimulate shopping in Oakland’s commercial districts in support of local merchants, the City of Oakland announced today that it will offer free parking for the next two Saturdays: Dec. 17 and 24.

Parking at all parking meters will be free for the posted period of time (30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours). The free parking “holiday” applies to both standard meters and the parking kiosks that are located in many commercial districts.

Standard parking rules and time limits apply — if shoppers need additional parking time, they will need to move their car across the street if it is a two-way street, or park around the block if it is a one-way street. The city will be monitoring parked cars on a regular basis. 

As usual, the Clay Street garage at 14th and Clay streets in downtown Oakland is open to the public free of charge all day Saturday year-round.

The two-Saturday parking “holiday” will result in the loss of about $125,000 in parking revenue, which will be absorbed by higher-than-projected revenues in other areas.

In addition, effective Thursday, the City is launching a pilot program that will give drivers a five-minute “grace period” on the expiration time at multi-space parking meters, and will allow parking enforcement officers to cancel citations if a driver approaches the officer prior to the ticket being issued.

Effective immediately, these new procedures will be put in place for a six-month pilot period through June 15, 2012. Prior to the end of the pilot program, staff will prepare an analysis and report out to the Finance & Management Committee on the effectiveness of the pilot program and their impact on the business community, customer service, parking revenues, and compliance.