You can visit Laguna Beach this summer without paying for parking.
Say what?
Yep, it’s true.
And yes, there’s this catch: Your vehicle will actually be parked in Irvine.
The City of Laguna Beach and Orange County Transportation Authority have teamed up for the second straight summer to open public parking near the intersection of the 405 freeway and Laguna Canyon Road (133) and have riders take free shuttle buses to chronically traffic-choked Laguna Beach.
Stops along the so-called Summer Breeze shuttle route are convenient to the Sawdust Festival, Laguna Art-A-Fair, Festival of the Arts, Pageant of the Masters, Laguna Playhouse and the Laguna Beach Bus Station, which is only one block from the beach. At the station you can also catch the free Laguna Beach Trolley, whose route passes various shopping and food destinations.
The Summer Breeze shuttles run on Saturdays and Sundays, July 1 through Sept. 3, from 11 a.m. to midnight.
Buses pick you up at the Cavalia lot on Laguna Canyon Road and Limestone in Irvine. See the map below and click here for more information.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.