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�,�' �o areas are free. Like San Mateo, Burlingame also shuts off the meters at 6pm and on Sundays. During Monday through Thursday evenings this doesn't seem to cause too many problems, and spaces can be found. During the weekends, though, congestion often occurs. Downtown Burlingame also has very strict time limits. Burlingame Avenue is one-hour maximum, and side streets are only two hours. During the enforcement hours, occupancy rates range from 84% to 96%--not perfect, but close. Before the current price structure was imposed, Burlingame Avenue was 100°Io occupied at nearly all times. According to surveys, ticket anxiety is a major problem in Downtown Burlingame. Enforcement is very aggressive and time limits are tight, so tickets are commonplace. The need to carry change is also a complaint—Burlingame has conventional parking meters. Of four factors presented to parkers during an intercept survey (lack of available spaces, chance of getting a ticket, need to carry change, and price) the price was the least concerning factor. Pasadena This summary of the parking management system in Old Pasadena is excerpted from "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup: Old Pasadena had no parking meters until 1993. Ail curb parking was free and was restricted only by a two-hour time limit. Because employees parked in the most convenient curb spaces and moved their cars periodically to avoid citations, customers had difficulty finding places to park. The city's staff proposed installing meters to regulate curb parking, but the merchants and property owners opposed the idea. They feared that meters, rather than freeing up space for customers, would discourage customers from coming at all. Customers and tenants, they assumed, would go to shopping centers with free parking. Meter proponents countered that anyone who left because they couldn't park free would make room for others who were willing to pay for parking if they could find a space, and that the want of convenient short-term parking kept many potential customers away. Proponents also argued that people who were willing to pay for parking would be likely to spend more money in the shops while they were in Old Pasadena. Debates about the meters dragged on for two years before the city reached a compromise with the business and property owners: All the meter revenue would be used to pay for public investments in Old Pasadena. Parking meters came to be seen in a new light — as a source of revenue — and the desire for public improvements suddenly outweighed the fear of driving customers away. The business and property owners agreed to an unusually high rate of $1 an hour for curb parking and even to operating the meters in the evenings and on Sundays. The city afso liked the arrangement because it wanted to improve Old Pasadena. The meters could provide the $5 million needed to finance the city's ambitious plan to improve Old Pasadena's streetscape and to convert its alleys into walkways with access to shops and restaurants. In effect, Old Pasadena became a parking benefit district. Business and property owners bought into the proposal for parking meters because they were bought off with the resulting revenue. paste 24