Just days before the City of San Diego was set to begin enforcing paid parking around Balboa Park, newly installed parking meter kiosks along Sixth Avenue were deliberately vandalized in what appears to be a targeted act of protest against the city’s expanding parking enforcement regime.
On the morning of January 1, 2026, multiple parking kiosks lining Sixth Avenue from Juniper Street south toward downtown were found disabled, with expanding contractor-grade foam injected into payment slots and at least one screen smeared with what appeared to be feces. Photos and video of the damage, taken early New Year’s Day, show at least five kiosks rendered unusable. San Diego Police Department officers were observed investigating the scene later that afternoon, though the city has not yet released an official statement identifying suspects or estimating repair costs.
The vandalism comes at a politically sensitive moment. After months of controversy, the City of San Diego is preparing to activate paid parking across large portions of Balboa Park and its surrounding neighborhoods, ending more than a century of largely free public access to one of the region’s most treasured civic spaces.
Under the city’s 2026 parking plan, curbside spaces around Balboa Park will be governed by new meter kiosks operating daily, with hourly rates expected to range between $2.50 and $3.00 per hour depending on location and demand. While city officials have framed the change as a “management” tool designed to increase turnover and reduce congestion, critics argue the policy amounts to a de facto admission fee for a public park that was historically accessible to all.
The plan also includes paid parking at the San Diego Zoo, where the city and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance have moved toward formalizing paid parking in zoo-adjacent lots. Rates at the zoo are expected to reach $15 to $20 per vehicle during peak periods, a shift that has drawn concern from families, seniors, and nonprofit workers who rely on regular access to the park and its institutions.
City officials have insisted that parking revenues must, by law, remain within the zones where they are collected. But for many residents, that assurance rings hollow in light of San Diego’s broader fiscal reality. The city is currently grappling with a structural budget deficit exceeding $350 million, and parking has increasingly become one of its most aggressive revenue levers.
Nowhere has that strategy been more visible - or more controversial - than downtown. In September 2025, the city implemented a new “Special Event Parking Zone” surrounding Petco Park, raising meter rates to $10 per hour during Padres games and other large events drawing 10,000 people or more. The zone spans a wide swath of downtown, bounded roughly by Broadway, Interstate 5, Harbor Drive, and State Street, and remains active for up to six hours per event - two hours before and four hours after first pitch or curtain time.
The increase represented a staggering 700 percent jump over prior meter rates in some areas, effectively turning public street parking into a premium commodity overnight. While the city defended the move by citing comparisons to San Francisco and other major markets, critics noted that San Diego lacks comparable transit density, leaving many workers, residents, and small business customers with few alternatives.
Even the San Diego Padres publicly criticized the policy, warning that the city’s decision would “make it significantly more expensive for fans, workers and residents to park on the streets surrounding the ballpark.” Disabled placard holders remain exempt, but no similar consideration has been extended to downtown residents or service workers whose jobs require them to be in the area during events. Against that backdrop, the vandalism at Balboa Park reads less like random destruction and more like a symptom of mounting public anger.
In recent months, a growing number of complaints involving parking enforcement across the city have been documented, including disputed citations, inconsistent signage, and aggressive ticketing practices in neighborhoods like East Village, Hillcrest, and North Park. In December, SDPD confirmed it had launched an internal investigation after a parking enforcement officer was accused of issuing a citation moments after chalking a tire - an encounter caught on Tesla dash video and later dismissed.
City leaders continue to frame parking reforms as environmentally responsible and fiscally necessary, citing climate goals and infrastructure investment. But for many residents, the pattern feels unmistakable: parking meters installed faster than public outreach, enforcement expanded faster than trust, and fees raised faster than wages. The vandalized kiosks along Sixth Avenue are now a physical manifestation of that tension - machines installed to monetize public space, defaced in an apparent act of rejection before they could even go live.
Whether the city treats the incident as isolated vandalism or as a warning sign remains to be seen. What is clear is that San Diego’s escalating reliance on parking revenue - at Balboa Park, the Zoo, Petco Park, and beyond - has reached a flashpoint. And as paid parking spreads into spaces long considered communal, the public backlash may be only beginning.
Originally published January 1, 2026.
