Saturday, November 8, 2025
After Long Beach officials announced that the city would overhaul parking in its three main business districts, the work of surveying the public’s opinions on potential solutions began in earnest.
The city hosted three workshops — the first on Sept. 29, for the West End; the second on Sept. 30, for the Central Park Avenue area; and the final one on Monday, for the East End.
“It’s like a race to get a spot to park,” said Barbara Harland, who, despite living in Long Beach for only six months, has already grown frustrated by the limited parking. “We’re all like vultures, circling around,” she added at the Sept. 30 workshop. “Sometimes you fear going out and being social, because you’re afraid you’re not going to get a spot.”
That Tuesday, at the Long Beach Public Library, residents and city officials discussed potential parking plans for the Central Park Avenue corridor, which stretches from Lafayette Boulevard to Monroe Boulevard. The work in all three areas of the city is expected to cost $150,000, $70,000 of which will be grant money.
“We are here to focus on Central Park Avenue corridor’s unique challenges and brainstorm and generate new ideas,” Celeste Frye, consultant team president for Public Works Partners, said.
Desman Design Management, Public Works Partners and City Council members John Bendo, Brendan Finn, Roy Lester and Michael Reinhart worked with Long Beach residents, listening to their comments in the hope of formulating a parking plan best suited to the corridor.
“We’re more focused on making sure that we have a very clear understanding of what you want and need going forward,” Andy Hill, director of consulting services at Desman Design Management, a firm specializing in parking, said. “The plans that we come back with are plans that are acceptable, supportable and implementable.”
Desman and PWP, an urban planning company, joined forces to collect data on residents’ and visitors’ parking habits and their suggestions, most recently by way of a survey. “We started a couple weeks ago with the survey, and that will roll into the parking plan,” Hill said. “The public process is the key to a lot of the success we’ve had in helping cities.”
Roughly an hour of the Sept. 30 workshop was dedicated to discussing parking trends, in order to use the information as potential talking points and solutions. “Big picture, about 50 percent of the parking — about 5,000 of those spaces — are accessible to the general public,” Hill said. “About 30 percent of the parking here is really in private hands, and about 20 percent is found in single-family homes and garages all across this area. That will give you a general overview of what we’re looking at.”
Four tables full of Long Beach residents, along with Hill, Frye and the city councilmen, offered their opinions on the best possible parking plan.
“No meters — or I would live in Rockville Centre,” Glenna King, a resident since 1997, said.
“I think there are areas they can block off for motorcycles to park where cars usually wouldn’t be able to fit,” Peggy Butts, a lifelong resident and the owner of Body & Soul Massage Therapy, said. “I have to tell my clients to come in while I leave to go move my car.”
Some potential solutions included residential parking permits and motorcycle-specific parking, and one major issue was the two-hour limit on parking for businesses and their employees.
“If they create an annual price permit,” said a resident and business owner who declined to give his name, “(the city) will make money, the employees will be happy, and they can leave their cars without having to worry about the time limit.”
The survey period will end on Friday, and city officials plan to present the more popular ideas to the public later this fall. “There are so many solutions that if you don’t try, you’re never going to get one,” Lester said.
To share an opinion, go to Survey123.arcgis.com/share/.
Have an opinion on how to make parking easier in Long Beach? Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.
