Laguna Beach to implement summer parking management plan

In preparation for the busy summer months, the Laguna Beach City Council approved a seasonal parking management plan aimed at addressing downtown parking demand and reducing traffic congestion.

The free summer trolley services will return with the exception of the Beach trolley, a pilot program introduced last year to provide ridership for residents looking to hit the sand and surf without the burden of driving and parking.

City officials said the Beach trolley service was available six hours a day — between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and again between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. — during the period coinciding with the Laguna Beach Unified School District’s summer recess. The service has been discontinued after it drew fewer than 4,000 boardings for the summer.

“We did market it in the neighborhoods,” Michael Litschi, director of transit and community services for the city, said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t really see a lot of people taking it. … Probably a better metric to look at is the boardings per hour, so that takes the total number of boardings divided by the number of hours that service is running. The beach trolley had an average of less than five boardings per hour throughout the summer, and that contrasts with our Summer Breeze and our other trolley services, which had on average 25 to 30 or more boardings per hour. … We do have the expanded on-demand [Laguna Local] service into North and South Laguna.”

Laguna Local on-demand transit service operating hours will begin at 9:30 a.m. daily from June 30 through Labor Day. The service will run until 8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until 11:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and conclude at 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The Coastal trolley will operate from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily, transporting passengers between North Laguna and Mission Hospital along Coast Highway.

Visitors can catch the Summer Breeze trolley from a peripheral parking lot located at 16355 Laguna Canyon Road in Irvine, the route taking passengers from near the 405 Freeway-State Route 133 interchange into town. The service runs weekends between 10 a.m. and 11:30 p.m., and an additional day will be added with Friday hours from noon to 11:30 p.m.

The Canyon trolley will bring people to the art festivals and the downtown from the Act V and Laguna College of Art and Design parking lots.

Free public parking will be provided in the peripheral lots at Mission Hospital (160 spaces) after 5 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends, along the Coastal trolley route. Parking will also be free at UMass Global (100-plus spaces), where the Summer Breeze trolley picks up passengers before heading into the city, after noon on Fridays and after 10 a.m. on weekends.

The Act V parking lot, in close proximity to the art festivals — Art-A-Fair, Festival of Arts and Sawdust, was utilized at roughly half its capacity last summer. To encourage increased use of the lot, Mayor Bob Whalen requested that the weekday rate for the Act V parking lot be reduced to $5. It had been set at $7. The weekend rate will remain $10.

Summer parking rates will be in effect from June 26 to Sept. 4. During that time, rates will be set at $5.45 per hour in the downtown area and $3 in other parts of the city. It will cost $17 for the day during the week and $24 on the weekend to park at the Village Entrance. Parking at the Susi Q and Community Center and at Hagan Place will be $6 for the day.

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