Mayor Jean Quan announced Thursday that as part of an effort to stimulate shopping in Oakland’s commercial districts, the city will offer free parking for the next two Saturdays - Dec. 17 and 24.

Quan said that on those Saturdays parking at all parking meters will be free for the posted period of time (30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours). The free parking “holiday” applies to both standard meters and the parking kiosks that are located in many commercial districts.

According to the mayor, if shoppers need additional parking time, they will need to move their car - either across the street if it is a two-way street or park around the block if it is a one-way street. Quan said the city's parking enforcement will be monitoring parked cars on a regular basis. 

"We wanted to do something that was responsive to the merchants and that will give a boost to the holiday," Quan said.

The two-Saturday parking “holiday” will result in the loss of about $125,000 in parking revenue, which will be absorbed by higher-than-projected revenues in other areas, Quan said.

"If this works well, we may do it for other holidays, we'll see," she said.

Merchants in Oakland have been actively campaigning the city to ease regulations and actions around parking. Over the last several years, the city has previously had parking holidays in shopping districts.

At a press conference for the announcement Thursday, Oakland merchants said they were pleasantly surprised by the city's actions.

"I'm really surprised by this," Stan Dodson, co-chair of the Business and Professional Association for the Dimond District. "I didn't know this was coming down the pike. I think it's great."

In addition to the parking holidays, Oakland also is launching a pilot program that will give drivers a five-minute “grace period” on the expiration time at multi-space parking meters and will allow parking enforcement officers to cancel citations if a driver approaches the officer prior to the ticket being issued. The new grace period for parking is a six-month pilot program, requested on Tuesday, Dec. 13, by members of the City Council’s Finance and Management Committee.

Oakland also will implement a new procedure at single-space parking meters. Under the new procedure, parking attendants in the process of issuing a parking ticket can cancel the ticket if the driver approaches the officer and the citation has not yet been issued. In the past, the officer was required to complete the citation.

"This is something we can do that's small and little," Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who headed up the new parking grace period policy, said. "We really want people to shop locally, we have great, local shopping centers and we really want people to come back and the last thing they (may) want to do is come back if they've just gotten an expensive ticket."

The new program will be in place through June 15.

Quan, who got entangled in a parking snafu with Grand Avenue merchants a few months ago, said her administration has been working on effective ways to deal with some of the parking policy problems that anger residents and business owners.

"Parking has been very controversial in our city over the years," Quan acknowledged.

She said the city is still moving ahead with establish a parking task force that will examine parking and pricing throughout the city.