Many thanks to the City of Santa Monica for developing this ingenious little website: http://parkingspacenow.smgov.net that gives real time parking availability updates for it's city-wide parking facilities. The guide's mission is to get you out of your car and on with your day a little more quickly.
You'll find lots of helpful information about the city's 16 parking lots and structures (including the Santa Monica Pier and beach parking lots along Pacific Coast Highway). The overview map will give you detailed information about lot locations, hours and rates and most importantly, the number of available parking spaces at any given time!
If you left your PDA at home, you can still navigate to a lot with available spaces by tuning into WQGR AM1680 - Santa Monica's parking and traffic information radio station. Now if they could only do something about those broken meters . . . . .