In technology parlance, you sometimes hear the expression, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
That’s somewhat analogous to what’s happening with the bus parking in Laguna Beach.
Those tour buses in front of Laguna’s festivals get VIP treatment, but the question is, where are all the buses, exactly?
Buses can be a rare sight, which makes the unused parking painfully obvious.
On busy nights, festival visitors trying to park in the canyon have to nearly walk from Irvine, but when they finally arrive dusty and thirsty at the Festival of Arts, there’s ample parking right in front – for the mystery buses.
To be fair, there are buses, mostly sometimes. A city parking guru chaffed a little bit at the notion that the spots are underutilized.
“The bus-only parking near Festival of Arts is regularly utilized (there were five buses parked there on Monday),” he said.
OK, so let’s assume there are buses. Can we optimize the process when not in use? In other words, make the tour operators tell the city when they’re coming. If it’s an off night, then open the parking.
“There is not currently a mechanism for bus or tour operators to tell the city when they are coming into town in advance,” the parking guy said. “There are 250 public parking spaces in the parking lots near the Festival, as well as another 250 parking spaces at the Act V parking lot, and there is also additional on-street parking on both sides of Laguna Canyon Road.”
So there’s enough parking, apparently. Which is kind of funny because more adventurous parkerers have resorted to off-roading. You may have seen them – the random cars and trucks parked in the dirt off Laguna Canyon Road, halfway up the wilderness area.
We will see how long that lasts.
Still, tour buses know when they’re coming to Laguna pretty far in advance. A parking reservation system seems doable.
