BART begins search for ways to improve parking in its lots

FILE-- A commuter walks to the Coliseum station after finding a space in a BART parking lot in Oakland on Thursday, April 30, 2015. BART officials are looking at overhauling their parking policies to allow prices that increase or decrease depending on demand and using license-plate readers to determine who’s paid for a space and who gets a citation. less FILE-- A commuter walks to the Coliseum station after finding a space in a BART parking lot in Oakland on Thursday, April 30, 2015. BART officials are looking at overhauling their parking policies to allow ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 22 Caption Close BART begins search for ways to improve parking in its lots 1 / 22 Back to Gallery

Commuters who drive to BART stations to catch a train know that finding a parking space is at best a challenge and at worst impossible.

Which has BART officials looking at overhauling their parking policies to allow prices that increase or decrease depending on demand and using license-plate readers to determine who’s paid for a space and who gets a citation.

Parking, which was once free at BART, has been a contentious issue for decades. There are several ways to get a parking spot in a BART lot or garage, and none of them are easy.

“They fill as early as 6 a.m. (at Pittsburg/Bay Point Station),” said Bob Franklin, BART’s manager for customer access and accessibility. “Wait lists (for monthly permits) are in the thousands at every station, and daily parking permits sometimes fill as soon as they’re available, which is two months in advance.”

Most of the agency’s 48,000 spots are first-come, first-served with a daily fee averaging $3. About 8,600 are set aside for those with permits — monthly, daily and long-term — at varying rates.

Something needs to be done to make more spaces available, BART officials agree. Agency officials are suggesting a change in BART’s parking policy.

Among the options being considered is a demand-pricing system that would allow prices to be adjusted up and down to keep some spaces available at busy times and fill them up when demand is low.

For commuters who park in the morning, that would probably mean higher prices on most days. When demand is lighter, however, as it is on Fridays, school vacation weeks or even the summer months, prices could be lower.

Any policy change would take a two-thirds vote of the nine-member Board of Directors.

Franklin raised the idea of demand-based parking at BART’s board meeting Thursday, saying it was time to update the agency’s policy as well as its technology and enforcement strategies. The existing policy, which took demand somewhat into account, allowed parking rates at each station to rise or fall in 50-cent increments depending on the average occupancy of the lots, to a maximum of $3 a day.

But every lot has hit its cap, except for West Oakland, which has none.

“So we no longer have any mechanism to modify demand,” Franklin said.

Although Franklin hasn’t proposed a policy, some directors enthusiastically supported the idea, including Director Rebecca Saltzman.

“I often have people tell me, I’d pay a lot more money if I could just get a spot,” she said.

But at least three directors, all of them representing what Director Joel Keller called “auto-dependent” districts with little public transportation, said their constituents are already paying a lot to commute and don’t really have a way to get to BART except to drive.

“These are working people, mainly middle-income, middle-class,” said Director Debora Allen, of Pleasant Hill. “They’re just trying to get to work, and they can’t afford more.”

Demand-based parking is growing. San Francisco has experimented with the practice at city meters for seven years, and recently decided to spread the practice citywide.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan