![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIJ-L-SAUSALITO-0611-04.jpg\")
A pay station stands in a city parking lot off Bridgeway in Sausalito, Calif., on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Alan Dep\/Marin Independent Journal)<\/p>\nSausalito is modernizing its technology for residents enrolled in its downtown parking program.<\/p>\n
The program allows residents to park for up to three hours between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. in several downtown lots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current system uses a parking card,\u201d Wayne Kwan, police program manager, told the City Council on Tuesday. \u201cInstead of using their card to start the parking session, they would verify they\u2019re a resident via a six-digit PIN. So we\u2019re reducing the need to purchase more cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an alternative to entering a personal identification number at a pay station, the city will offer a ParkMobile cellphone app. The app vendor will charge a 45-cent transaction fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll they have to do is sign up for ParkMobile with the same email address that they sign up for the residential benefit program,\u201d Kwan said.<\/p>\n
Last November, the council approved replacing the outdated parking system of meters and pay stations. The new technology is an interim stage before another upgrade that includes license plate readers, a staff report said.<\/p>\n
Sausalito collects $2.5 million a year from parking fees. The resident program barely dents that revenue stream, Kwan said, and it has a $25 application fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe estimated value of parking provided through the program during this period was approximately $179,927.65,\u201d the staff report said, referring to last year. \u201cEach resident parking session had an estimated value of approximately $9.60, which corresponds to an average parking duration of approximately two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat tells us that the majority of Sausalito residents are honest and stay with the benefit within the rules as intended,\u201d Kwan said.<\/p>\n
A pay station stands in a city parking lot off Bridgeway in Sausalito, Calif., on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Alan Dep\/Marin Independent Journal)<\/p>\n
The City Council was presented with several options to change the program fees but declined to.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Ian Sobieski asked if someone could reuse personal identification numbers to game the app. Kwan said the system would detect and block such abuse.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Joan Cox asked if the city could email personal identification numbers to all participants rather than having them call the police department to obtain the log-in, as Kwan suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll discuss that with my team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Public commenters praised the upgrades, although some said seniors might need help learning to use the phone app.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe residential parking program is great for our merchants because it encourages people to come downtown,\u201d said Adrian Brinton.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic for me and a lot of my friends that like to go downtown,\u201d said Andrew Dennison. \u201cThe ParkMobile app is actually very cool and I think it would be an excellent addition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve used it in a lot of different towns and it is awesome,\u201d Sharna Brockett said. \u201cYou can be in a restaurant and realize you\u2019re going over and could just put some more time on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carolyn Revelle said one restaurateur offered to hold a coffee where Kwan could \u201cdemystify\u201d the app for residents with questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sausalito is modernizing its technology for residents enrolled in its downtown parking program. The program allows residents to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,78135,181,23,992,100,180,993,266,2426,101,103,102,3624,3625,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-284632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-downtown-sausalito","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-marin-county","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-newsletter","15":"tag-north-bay","16":"tag-northern-california","17":"tag-parking","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","20":"tag-san-francisco-news","21":"tag-sausalito","22":"tag-sausalito-city-council","23":"tag-sf","24":"tag-sf-headlines","25":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}