Parking makeover nearly complete at San Jose airport

The two lots will put 1,516 new spaces within an easy, ground-level stroll to Terminal B. No longer will people need to drive into the seven-story rental garage, find no public parking open and then have to navigate their way out and look elsewhere.

It's all part of an $8.8 million makeover that divides the airport's parking into three types -- hourly, daily and economy -- at which drivers pay as little a $2 for 30 minutes to as much as $30 for an entire day.

"We constantly get the obvious complaint -- you just built this new airport, but
you don't have enough parking," said spokesman David Vossbrink. "A big part of the answer is that we weren't done yet."

Now? "We're done," Vossbrink said. "This marks the end of our modernization program."

Entry into the long-term lot on the west side of Mineta San Jose International Airport will be shut off also on Friday -- although the exit plazas will remain open until all cars have cleared.

Then on Monday, the lot to the far south of the rental garage will be converted to a daily parking area. Signs with the new names will be in place by Tuesday morning.

There will be 5,543 parking spaces for the public spread across the airport, with 800 more for employees and 3,000 for rental vehicles. Most are within a seven-minute walk of the two terminals.

Terminal B chaos

Since three of every four airline passengers now go through Terminal B, parking there is most in demand. Drivers often pull into the garage across from it, only to find no place to park. Only the first floor of that seven-story garage is for public parking, and it has just 285 spots, with the remaining six floors reserved for rentals.

"You have this nice, new shiny terminal and a huge garage right across the street -- and there's almost no room for people to park," said Dawn Rubin of San Jose. "It's almost all for rentals."

Long lines tend to form in front of Terminal B as motorists avoid the parking hassle by pulling to the curb to pick up arriving passengers. It can get chaotic, with cars stacked three or four wide into the street and attendants blowing whistles to get drivers moving.

Some confusion is certain to remain, as the names of the lots are changing. Don't bother looking for the long-term lot. It will be relabeled the "economy lot." Out is the short-term lot; in are hourly and daily lots.

Options abound

Drivers will pay $2 for every 30 minutes in the hourly lots, where you want to head if choosing to park when picking up or dropping off passengers. It's a flat $22 fee if parked in a daily lot all day, but $30 a day if parked in an hourly lot.

If the daily rate catches drivers by surprise, they'll have 15 minutes to exit at no cost.

The current situation is "terrible," said Doug Claar of San Jose, who spent 10 minutes driving though the garage outside the new terminal last month looking for an open spot -- and then was dinged an extra buck for exceeding the old time limit of 20 minutes. "It sure left a bad taste in my mouth."

But the new time limit change will give those looking for parking in the rental garage more time to get out -- free.

"If you get into that lot and really don't want to be there, you don't have to fight to get out in five minutes," said Bob Lockhart, the airport operations manager. "We realize somebody might get into those lots and discover the flat rate and say they don't want to pay that."

The best bargain if leaving your car for a couple of days or longer is the economy lot, at $15 a day. It's been moved from west of the airport to the east side, in the shadow of the Highway 87 and 101 interchange, but finding parking could be difficult. The old long-term lot had 3,100 spaces. The economy lot has 1,673 and will likely fill up most weekends.

Storm before the calm

The looming changes should be the final alterations for quite some time. The airport cannot add on to the seven-story Terminal B garage and build 12 more gates until there are 12.2 million passengers a year, airport officials say. There were 8.2 million passengers a year ago, a sharp drop from the 13.9 million in 2000 during the dot-com boom.

Bob Filiault of Newbury Park, who flies into Mineta San Jose a half-dozen times a month, said, "What they have come up with is 100 times superior to the current parking system. Like any change, it might confuse a few drivers at first, but the second time around will be a joy."

For Claar, the test is simple.

"If the new lots have the less-than-an-hour spots nice and close to baggage claim, then I'll be happy again," he said. "It will be nice if the airport settles down for a while. Having to refigure it out every time you go there has been painful."