Deserves less than zero stars. Have used this garage for our visits downtown for years. Since new management took over not too long ago, this parking garage has gone down the toilet. We live out of town and drove an hour one way to SA tonight to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant across the street. This restaurant had an arrangement with previous garage mgmt for years that would reduce the cost of parking there if you got the restaurant to validate your garage ticket. You would pay your pkg fee at an automated booth inside the garage when you left by inserting your "ticket" into the machine & then paying the $ amount the machine told you to pay. System worked well. Now the new mgmt has installed a new payment system that sucks. As you pull into garage entrance off Soledad you encounter a machine a few feet off the street that forces you to insert your credit card before it will allow you to enter past the mechanical arm. Only has space for one car to pull off the street. Tonight we sat for a number of minutes behind a car that was having difficulty with the new payment machine. Since some idiot at the city decided to change formerly one way Soledad St to 2-way now, we were sitting partially on the street & thus partially blocking pedestrian traffic passing the garage entrance. Five cars backed up on the street behind us, because we were waiting for the car ahead of us to move into the garage so that we could "prepay" at the machine. The people in front of us had to call the customer service person thru the machine for help. They couldn't get in. Everybody had to back up along the street behind us, so the car ahead of us could back out. Not aware of the problem these folks had, we then got a turn at trying to park in the garage. Made multiple attempts to gain access by following the simple directions on the screen. We then called customer service lady who walked us thru the simple instructions a few more times. Machine still didn't work. The solution she ended up giving us was to "go find another place to park". So then we had to back out onto the street which we couldn't do until a line of cars behind us on the street also backed up. With opposite traffic backed up from the corner traffic light, no one could move at first. Luckily we finally found another parking space (a rare handicapped spot 3 blocks away on the street). Wasted more than 20-25 minutes just trying to get to the restaurant before they closed for the night. As we passed by the garage on way walking to the restaurant we watched several more cars pull in and then have to back out into the street just like we had to. The restaurant owner told us that people had complained to him about the same problem at the Rand Garage for the past several hours. Apparently this is a common problem at this garage. With the new hotel that opened in this block, traffic has increased significantly as have this pkg garage's rates. And they now offer overnight pkg as well as hourly. Unfortunately I'm afraid these changes may adversely affect this restaurant's business, and others in the area, as it's become so much more difficult to find parking downtown. And don't hope to find a "human" who can or will help. They've all been replaced by automation. AND don't get me started about the hordes of riders on scooters who fly down the sidewalks doing their best to mow pedestrians down. Keep your eyes peeled for them so you can hopefully avoid injury. Another hair brained idea by some city bureaucrat.... read more