Meters, Meters Everywhere, but No Place to Park
New program will allow San Francisco to finally assess the effectiveness of yellow and red commercial parking meters
During the mad retail season leading up to Christmas, the 985-space garage under Union Square, the city’s prime retail shopping district, was often filled to capacity.
Last Wednesday, drivers discovered this the hard way. After inching slowly along circuitous routes through downtown, many finally arrived at the garage only to find a “full” sign, a backup of vehicles and gridlock.
Horns blared. Humbug!
Yet on the streets surrounding the square, in nearly every direction, hundreds of street parking spaces sat vacant, forbidden to be used by drivers who needed them. Instead, the spaces were marked by yellow and red parking meters: for commercial use only.
On the two blocks of Post Street between the square and Kearny Street, for example — a stretch packed with shops like Nike, H&M, Coach and Gump’s — only two of the metered spaces were for regular drivers; 43 other spaces had yellow or red meters, and most of them were empty. Commercial vehicles elsewhere were double parking and causing more gridlock.
Such scenes of private drivers’ circling while commercial spaces sit empty are found throughout the city. Businesses say they need the spots for deliveries, but the number of underused spaces has raised questions about whether an imbalance has developed and if a valuable city asset is being mismanaged — parking spaces are public property and an important source of revenue for the city, which gains roughly $125 million annually from meter fees and citations.
New technology could soon provide the city with insight into how to best use parking spaces. Until recently, it appears that parking decisions have been made based on guesswork.
For more than a year The Bay Citizen has tried to analyze the proliferation of yellow and red meters and their impact on neighborhoods and meter revenues, using a series of public records requests under the city’s Sunshine Ordinance.
But the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, the agency that operates and manages meters, could not provide detailed records of when meters were changed from general public use to yellow and red, or how much money is received per meter type — information that would reveal how much meters are being used.
Instead, agency managers said such information was inaccessible or not kept.
The city has about 29,000 meters, with revenues of $39 million for the fiscal year that ended in June. Citations — tickets for expired meters and other parking violations — are an even larger revenue source: $86 million last fiscal year. About 3,400 parking spaces are reserved for commercial use, but it is unknown how many of those involve red or yellow meters.
However, facts could soon be available to help determine parking policy, because of a new program called SF park, being phased in over the next few years and aimed at better understanding and improving parking.
“It will allow us to manage parking based on fact, rather than feel,” said Paul Rose, the transit agency’s spokesman.
As part of the program a detailed accounting was conducted last year of all of the city’s parking spots. The survey counted 281,364 spaces — nearly 40,000 fewer than the previous estimate of 320,000, made in 2001.
To help maximize the use of those spaces, the SF park program calls for planting sensors in the streets and installing new computerized meters — currently in pilot use in some neighborhoods, including the Financial District and SoMa — to provide instant information on whether a space is occupied. There is already a smartphone application that tells drivers when these spaces are available.
The new system will also provide detailed revenue information, broken down by meter types; Rose said that data would “absolutely” be used to assess the effectiveness of yellow and red meters.
That can’t happen soon enough for Veronica O’Sullivan, owner of the salon Aesthetics by Veronica in the Laurel Village neighborhood.
“Parking is diabolical,” O’Sullivan said, remarking on the limited number of metered spaces for public use. In addition to so many spaces designated for commercial use, construction in recent months has also eliminated street parking for blocks, leaving both drivers and merchants frustrated.
“People are constantly late for their appointments, circling an hour to find parking,” she said, and then added in her Irish lilt, “Oh, and the cussing. Even little old ladies.”
This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
M L
I want to be very clear here: The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority -- aka the SFMTA -- is not an agency of any sane government or elected by any sane people. It is a municipal mafia. It is staffed largely by loons who have made a mockery of transit policy in SF. Ed Lee should step up and call the emperors of MTA to be without clothes, fire them, and move on. Literally. We need to MOVE on.
Andrew Ferguson
I love you! Marry me!
William Jacobson
I've often wondered what prevents rigorous enforcement of double-parking rules for the trucks of UPS and FedEx, for whom "the world is our parking space." The problem comes up in any discussion of improving MUNI's transit times and traffic congestion, and would seem to be at least a short-term revenue enhancer. But the drivers are held to delivery schedules that leave them little choice, and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't also subjected to some company sanctions for "excessive" parking citations.
Maybe the City should just charge UPS, FedEx, and their kith and their kin a flat fee based on some multiple of the previous year's parking fine payments. Alternatively, what are the chances that a parking enforcement officer could generate a positive cash flow just by tailing delivery trucks around downtown for a full shift?
NanG
So if more street parking is made available downtown and in the Financial District for general public use, how do you keep these added spaces from being taken over by drivers with handicapped placards such as has happened in Chinatown and the Jackson Square area? The Bay Citizen had an article on the abuse of handicapped placards, and the fact that San Francisco had issued significantly more placards than New York City, some time ago but then dropped the matter. It appears that getting a handicapped placard is as easy as obtaining a marijuana ID card. What does New York City do to curtail such abuse that San Francisco does not do?
b s
Agree with NanG's comment above. I would love to see The Bay Citizen do an update re the handicap placard story.
jon winston
If you want to be on time, take the bus. Before you laugh, consider how busses are slowed by double parked delivery trucks and cars driven by people who don't want to be late taking the bus.
Andrew Ferguson
As soon as red and yellow meters are freed up for general parking, let's make them all parklets!
Yay! How innovative! How green!
(How absurd.)
Jay Shaw
I take point with ML's comment on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA). Just consider where this country would be without bureaucrats and their lice. No IRS, no lobbyists, and no SEC. Imagine! Without bureaucrats America couldn't send any armed soldiers to foreign wars, we couldn't continue to block legislation to prevent the wholesale purchase of politicians. Why we couldn't even conduct clandestine assassinations of foreigners and Americans we don't like.
Face it. Congress and local government work for the best Democracy money can buy. Without America's present arrangement, we'd have to live by that outdated bit of verbiage written by doddering oldsters from centuries ago: the US Constitution. If we had to depend solely on that, we'd have no way to channel public money to the real people in America: Corporations.
As long as the SFMTA remains funded and endowed with humanities finest bureaucrats, America will have a chance to be reminded on a daily basis of sinking into madness. May the SFMTA and the United States Congress continue to light the way into our future oblivion. Alien anthropologists will note the citizens of San Francisco met the end of the world driving around looking for parking or being fined for its lack. Try to collect.
R T
Jay you are brilliant- allow me to take you notion further- No FDA regulating medicine so that the snake oil artists could sell you anything they wanted to. No health inspectors in public eating establishments so you can get food poisoning, no fire department to put out the fire or take granny to the hospital when she has a stroke, no cops to prevent someone from beating the day lights out of you and taking your food. What a utopia you have come up with Jay.
Jay Shaw
Ha ha....RT, actually the "utopia" is what you describe and what "you have come up with..." RT. You even said you wanted to be allowed to take it further....uh, appears you did. And appears you didn't like what you did.
Back on earth, I appreciate your cleverness, however, no one is urging that fire fighters, cops, and health inspectors go on permanent holiday. Are they?
My distaste for bureaucrats should be reined in. I agree with you there RT. There are, after all, some very good people working in our bureaucracies. It's their policies that often become inane.
Robert Montgomery
This whole situation is a catch-22.
Eliminate the yellow zones and you get more double parking. Leave the yellow zones and get less car parking.
Do something crazy, like I expect to see in the near future, and have some spots change their "use" mid-day and nobody will park there ever because they won't know if they can.
Look at the picture associated with the article. It takes 10 minutes just to figure out what all those stickers are trying to say.
Don Hesse
I want to add my voice to those above asking for greater scrutiny of the handicapped licenses. Of course it is a political minefield, but I know three people with disabled cards who can walk for blocks at a time. One works as a school crossing guard, standing and walking constantly. The other two have jobs that require them to carry heavy loads up and down stairs. The program is a complete farce and the people who suffer most are real disabled people who can't find parking!! (Yes they got the Doctor's letter; what do the doctors care? Do you think they look for parking spaces?) The biggest rip off is the free parking: hundreds (thousands?) of disabled stickers are on cars that are parked for 8 - 9 hours a day --- if they can work 40 a week, why can't they pay for parking?? What does that have to do with being disabled.
Roger Barnett
And nobody notes that all those cars cruising around looking for parking simply add to the congestion, delay buses, and waste fuel and pollute the air. Again, why not discourage cars from coming right into the heart of SF by offering alternatives: Park and Ride is widely used in Britain and other European countries ... parking for free or a nominal sum, speedy bus ride into the center, and a much more attractive urban environment in the city center. Does nobody ever travel abroad to see how these issues can be tackled effectively elsewhere in the world? I ask this rhetorical question quite often and it never gets a response. What a pity.
george topor
SF/MTA also known as the Rube Goldberg Agency. If there is a way to make something that should be simple, complicated these folks are the best. You can't find a meter (never mind the Red or Yellow ones) that you can park at long enough. You can get a ticket while texting to find one, every month or so the payment methods change and all this from an agency that doesn't know how much it costs them to even issue and collect the money due them. They collect 83% of the valu of citations and can't tell you if this is a good rate, if it is more or less than last year etc. If you ask (and I have) how much it costs them to issue the citations, first I was told $19 million, then $41 million and then the wall of privacy went up. I asked why parking meters could be like a garage, check in, check out and never get a ticket. Talk about ruffling feathers. Granted the city believes in Transit First so drivers are penalized. Ofcourse it would be nice to have a good transit system.
George Smith
Time to end the "parklet" program and the food truck program! Parking spaces are at a premium.....
Gordon
The handicap placard abuse is just as serious a problem, if not more so. But, don't forget another big issue, City owned vehicles that also take hundreds if not thousands of spaces as well. Every little City bureaucrat has to have a car that usually spends most of the day in a metered spot, for free...
R T
actually there are very few, if any City offices in Union Square. Most are around civic center and SOMA. And virtually all have lots to park their cars- i.e the huge lot you can see from the Central freeway for the DHS carpool. The cops take up quite a few around the Hall of Justice, but not too many shoppers etc. are looking for spaces there.
Gordon
I'm talking about the entire city, and there are a lot more than you have identified that are scattered everywhere, why can't these people take a bus?
R T
Again- the vast majority of city offices are in civic center and SOMA. Most of the vehicles you probably see out and about are city workers out doing their job- i.e. health inspectors, child welfare workers, building inspectors, probation officers, etc. They use cars as it is an efficiency thing- If you are a building inspector you can see many more projects etc. if you have a car and drive to the sites, versus taking the bus to the job sites. Same with Health inspectors, social workers, etc. There is also a question of safety. If you are a child welfare worker and need to take a child into protective custody, do you really want to wait at the corner bus stop with the kid while the parents are fuming?
Gordon
You are talking about extremes to cover-up for what is a 90% waste of resources.
R T
Ok your turn- name the city agencies that have offices all over the place and have their cars parked in metered spaces all day. If the examples I named were 10%- what are the 90 percent wasted resources. Time to get specific instead of parroting some talking head at KSFO.
Edward Liu
San Francisco is a stunningly beautiful city, but it's management, urban policy, and citizenry suck.
The inability to lean how to manage growth, a citizenry which is provincial in attitude, a crass culture of bunga-bunga slack, hyperconsumerism, hyper hedonism have made this city uninhabitable.
Your housing is subpar. Your roads broken. Your restaurants charge gouging prices.
You visit other world-class cities who have learned how to manage growth, urbamization, with it's institutions vibrant... And the differences are stark.
Mediocre city with a provincial people of buffoons, slackers, and bunga bunga hedonists.
And the lousy transit is just a small illustration of how small-minded this city is.
tele graph
Dear Mr. Liu,
Please name names. Name the cities better than SF for managed urbanization, including transit and vibrating institutions...