La Jolla merchants learned from a consultant in May about a study revealing there is ample parking available in the Village at all times. Brad Elsass, of Ace Mobility Solutions, clued La Jolla Village Merchants Association in on the status of parking. 
“We need to prioritize what can be done to help mobility within La Jolla Village, what’s going to take a little more time and what’s just not going to be a feasible solution,” said Elsass, noting previous parking studies “didn’t get right the amount of off-street parking. Nobody’s really taken into account what the off-street parking stalls are, the whole inventory, lot by lot, where there is parking available.”
Elsass pointed out there are 2,456 on-street parking stalls, and about 4,000 parking stalls off-street either in managed parking garages or off-street parking lots. Another 200 stalls are created via use of valets totaling about 6,700 stalls. “Most studies done in the past have set the total inventory at 3,500 stalls,” Elsass said. “That’s not the inventory.”
Added Elsass: “We are not out of parking, not even during the most impacted times on nights and weekends. There’s plenty of parking out there. We just need to figure out how to market it, get it out there and leverage it so it benefits the community.”
Elsass said another misconception, aside from the misperception that La Jolla doesn’t have enough parking, is that existing paid, off-street parking is more expensive than elsewhere. 
“Our (parking) rates are discounted averaging about $100 per month versus other San Diego markets, a good example being monthly parking rates in downtown San Diego, which are approximately $220 to $250 a month on the high end,” he said.
“The reality is we want to improve traffic in the Village,” Elsass said adding, “Increasing City enforcement of parking stalls will (positively) impact overall parking in the Village. We also have to be more honest about making off-street parking more available for people on the street.”
Elsass added Uber and other multi-modal travel alternatives also have to be better and more accurately accounted for.
“If we can understand what happens with Uber, tap into some of their data sets, we can create ridership zones that help with transportation issues,” he said.
“This presentation was not meant to be a comprehensive parking solution for La Jolla but a brief snapshot,” said LJVMA executive director Jodi Rudick. “We just want to make sure we’re going down the right path to find solutions so that merchants and their staffs aren’t using so many on-street parking stalls.”