SFMTA Board Chair Tom Nolan (left), Supervisor Scott Wiener (center), Mayor Ed Lee, and SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin at an SFPark press conference. Photo: Mayor's Press Office/Flickr

But whether San Francisco will live up to its promise as a leader in sustainable transportation in the coming years depends on the political will of city leaders like Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin to make bold improvements to our streets. Lasting change will come from policies like extending parking meter hours, consolidating bus stops, implementing a strong pedestrian safety action plan, and the swift build-out of safer, more comfortable bikeways to increase bicycle ridership.

“San Francisco has indeed never been so poised to leap ahead and build on the successes of the past few years by committing to and vigorously pursuing a sound strategy that will get the city to its goal of 20 percent of trips by bicycle by 2020,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Deputy Director Kit Hodge. “San Francisco loves bicycling and is more ready than ever to take even bigger steps forward, beginning right now with the implementation of the crosstown bike routes in our Connecting the City vision.”

This month, the SFMTA approved its 2013 – 2018 Strategic Plan [PDF], setting out to reduce car use from 62 percent of all trips to 50 percent. And San Francisco’s goal of reaching 20 percent trips by bike by 2020 is uniquely ambitious among American cities. But for the reality to match the rhetoric, change will have to happen faster.

To use the example of bikeways and complete streets, the agency’s current rate of delivery on protected bike lanes doesn’t seem sufficient to meet the city’s targets. The SFMTA has struggled so far to keep up with the bold ten-year plan envisioned by the SFBC in its Connecting the City campaign, which calls for 100 miles of bikeways by 2020. The city’s first parking-protected bikeway is only expected to begin construction this week after a year of delay, and fixing the crucial bicycling link on just three blocks of Fell and Oak Streets will have taken over a year and a half from conception to implementation. Planners on that project have said the time required is partly due to the search for new car parking spots to make up for the spaces the bikeways will replace.

Meanwhile, New York City has built about twenty miles of protected bikeways in recent years, and aims to build up to ten more in Manhattan by 2013. Traffic injuries to all users have dropped as much as 35 percent on streets with protected bikeways, and the reallocation of space from traffic to pedestrians in Midtown has produced even more impressive safety gains. Overall, the city’s pedestrian fatalities have declined by 40 percent since 2001. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel quickly installed the Kinzie Street bikeway last summer, and wants to build 100 miles — the same number envisioned by SFBC within the decade — before his first term is over.

San Francisco’s SFPark program, while highly successful, could extend to more neighborhoods and cover additional times of day when it is sorely needed. The program is perhaps the most visibly noted accomplishment by the ITDP, but it is being tested by a backlash as the SFMTA seeks to expand it into the neighborhoods around Mission Bay. Whether neighbors have valid criticisms of the agency’s outreach or they just don’t want to pay for parking, SFPark manager Jay Primus announced this week that the agency will postpone taking the expansion plan before the SFMTA Board of Directors. Meanwhile, Mayor Lee has backed down on extending meter hours that would allow SFPark to be used most effectively. Eyes are on city leaders and staff to see how willing they are to stay the course with a groundbreaking, progressive and effective program.

San Francisco has made some important advances in sustainable transportation. But to meet — and perhaps exceed — the expectations set by the ITDP’s award, Mayor Lee and other leaders must commit to the changes San Francisco needs to achieve safer, more livable streets.

Image: SFPark

The SFPark program’s Mission Bay Parking Management Strategy is “meant to address the existing severe parking availability issues and to get ready for the future,” said SFPark Manager Jay Primus, who sat in on a three-hour hearing on the plan at City Hall today. “These are neighborhoods where we’re going to see the majority of the city’s growth in the years to come.”

The plan was approved for recommendation to the SFMTA Board of Directors, save for a few blocks which the hearing officers recommended for re-evaluation.

Included in the plan’s Mission Bay “Parkingshed” area are existing and planned developments that are drawing more and more commuters, including the University of California San Francisco, AT&T Park, and Caltrain stations at 22nd and Fourth Streets. It also encompasses impacted “buffer areas” like the Dogpatch and Potrero Hill neighborhoods, and SFPark expansions are also planned in the Mission around a park that’s set to replace a parking lot at 17th and Folsom Streets.

But among the complaints, residents defended subsidized free parking, claiming meters would impose an undue burden on drivers in areas with poor access to transit and more residential and industrial uses than retail.

“No doubt these are complex neighborhoods,” said Primus, “but they’re predominantly commercial, mixed-use PDR [production, distribution and repair] areas. That doesn’t mean that MTA should leave this parking utterly unmanaged. This is parking that is close to BART, Third Street light rail, and that businesses depend on for their economic vitality.”

But even some supporters of SFPark, like Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association President Tony Kelley, criticized the SFMTA for a lack of outreach to neighbors.

“We do not have space for everybody in their car to drive to work, so we need parking management,” said Kelley, “but for god’s sake, if you’ve got 2,000 people in the neighborhood saying you haven’t talked to us, then maybe you need to talk to us.”

Primus defended the outreach efforts, saying staff does its best “to engage with every individual.”

“We’ve reached out to every large group we could in these areas,” said Primus. “It’s impossible to reach everyone. Judging by the meeting today, clearly, the word has gotten out there, and that’s great. This is part of a healthy process for SFMTA.”

“Sometimes you feel like you could send an engraved invitation and people would still say they’ve never heard about it,” said Cheryl Brinkman, a member of the SFMTA Board of Directors. She pointed out that even though flyers were put on every door in the outreach for the Masonic Avenue redesign project, some still complained it wasn’t enough.

“I think as city dwellers, we sometimes underestimate what people are willing to do for free parking,” she added.

Among the organizations supporting the plan are Livable City and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who sent letters to the SFMTA this week encouraging staff to move it forward.

“The expansion of metered spaces will provide the parking turnover that neighborhood-serving businesses need,” wrote Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich in his letter. “SFPark metering and pricing will also reduce cruising for parking in these neighborhoods. Cruising for parking generates traffic which delays Muni, produces greenhouse gas emissions, and distracted drivers making multiple turns endanger pedestrians and cyclists in these increasingly pedestrian- and cycling-oriented neighborhoods.”

But ending the subsidy of free parking rarely comes without a fight, and opponents seemed geared up to return when the plan goes before the SFMTA Board of Directors for final approval in February. Contrary to the doomsday predictions of critics, Primus warned that the plan’s approval will be crucial to the success of those neighborhoods.

“Mismanaging parking in this area is going to hold back the economic growth and vitality in the city,” said Primus, “and that would be a shame.”

We will be off for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Have a great weekend, and we will see you back here on Tuesday.

Primus speaking with SFMTA Sustainable Streets Director Bond Yee at the installation of SFPark meters in March. Photo: SFMTA/Flickr

Primus got in touch yesterday when the Streetsblog Network highlighted a blog post from Michael Perkins at Greater Greater Washington which claimed that the results of the experiment, which began in April, are showing that “prices affect parking less than San Francisco expected.”

“To date,” wrote Perkins, “the most crowded blocks have typically continued to be crowded even after adjusting the prices upward, while under-occupied blocks have not filled up even after dropping the price.”

Primus responded in the comments and spoke with Streetsblog to address points raised by Perkins and other readers. “The ‘expectations’ that Michael wrote of are his own,” Primus said. It’s also worth pointing out that Perkins’ post didn’t include any specific data or sources that support his assertion.

“SFMTA has taken a very empirical approach with SFPark,” said Primus, “and this is a demonstration project that is just getting started, so it’s a little early to say how well it’s working, especially without proper analysis and evaluation.”

See the full statement from Primus after the break:

It is premature to make conclusions about the effectiveness of demand-responsive pricing for parking. Before evaluating its effectiveness, people need time to become aware of rate differences between blocks, time of day, and/or between on- and off-street alternatives (as we have largely lowered rates in garages). These changes do not happen overnight.

Several people have commented that, essentially, “demand-responsive pricing at meters won’t work because drivers will not know prices at different meters or garages”. We disagree.  Not everyone needs to know about the differences in parking rates. To create more parking availability, we only need a few people to know about rate changes and choose to park somewhere else.

Who knows about the differences in parking rates? At least some people, whether because they use an app to see rates (as well as availability), park so frequently in the same area that they are “experts” that end up noticing rate differences, or because people will generally start to realize that it now costs less to park in garages than on-street. It is still very early days and it takes time to learn and adjust.

When evaluating the effects of parking pricing on parking demand, it is also important to recognize that parking demand is not constant. Many factors besides price influence parking demand, including seasonal variations (e.g., summer vs. fall), employment levels, and fuel prices. SFpark is a demonstration project, and we are gathering data that will enable a rigorous evaluation to better understand how price, as well as other factors, influence demand for parking. After a longer period (say, 18-24 months) of demand-responsive rate changes, we will all be in a better position to rigorously evaluate how demand-responsive pricing delivers benefits and changes parking, or travel, behavior.

Photo: Jun Seita/Flickr

Year after year, the champions of free car parking come to defend its sanctity when the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) works up the guts to raise the issue in its search for budget solutions.

As surely as drivers will cruise endlessly for coveted free parking spots every Sunday, opponents like San Francisco Examiner’s Ken Garcia will attempt to stifle calls for the expansion of metered parking hours.

Unfortunately, public discourse on the issue is repeatedly timed with the SFMTA’s budget deadline, helping to feed the widespread misconception that pricing parking is nothing more than a money grab and obscuring its potential as a sorely overdue solution for rationalizing the use of our streets.

In his column yesterday, Garcia called for squashing once and for all the “tired” practice of using cars as “roving cash machines.”

Nevermind that San Francisco is already resorting to general fund bonds to pave the streets in lieu of payments from the motor vehicle owners who wear them down. To Garcia, putting a rational price on parking spaces is “a kind of ‘gouge and go’ philosophy to get city transportation planners off the hook for their bosses’ inability to run their own department efficiently.” Unfortunately, Mayor Ed Lee went along with Garcia’s rant.

To be sure, there are many steps the SFMTA could take to be more efficient, but the question of how to price parking isn’t necessarily about the budget. It’s about fixing an outdated system of wasteful giveaways that ultimately benefit no one – not even drivers.

As Streetsblog has written extensively, when parking is underpriced, we all pick up the tab. On Sundays and weeknights after 6 p.m., free parking throughout the city means drivers have no incentive to limit their stay during high-demand periods and busy commercial districts are inundated with car traffic as drivers circle for parking.

The costs add up, with as much as 30 percent of downtown drivers in some cities on the hunt for a place to leave their car.

We’ve all come to expect to pay the market-rate price for a scarce resource, whether it’s a movie ticket on a Friday night or an apartment in San Francisco. Why should the consumption of 140 square feet of public space to store an automobile be any different?

Of course, rather than paying in cash, drivers pay for “free” parking by queuing up. The problem is, they make others pay too. You can see the true cost of free parking every Sunday in my neighborhood, the Inner Sunset. Frustrated drivers make endless loops around the same blocks. Many give up and double park on streets like Irving, forcing bicycle riders onto the streetcar tracks and often blocking the N-Judah until the operator blares the horn at them.

That’s the dysfunction that Garcia wants to perpetuate. Meanwhile, a better system is right under his nose. The SFPark program’s innovative strides toward pricing parking accurately have been widely lauded in this city and across the country.

Even Mayor Lee touted the rationale for parking pricing at SFPark’s launch in April: “You know, when you’re driving around looking for a parking space and you’re double parking and you’re running around trying to see whether something will open, you’re dumb.”

“We want to be less dumb about this,” said Lee.

But now, Lee appears to be abandoning intelligent policy and playing it safe like his predecessor. He told Garcia that raising more parking revenue, including updating meter hours, is “an old, re-hashed idea” and that we need a better, “long-term solution.”

Lee’s assertion that adjusting meter hours is an old idea is absolutely correct. San Francisco’s parking meter hours basically haven’t been updated since they were first installed in 1947 to encourage turnover during business hours.

Many things have changed since then — like business hours.

But as long as city leaders keep playing to the misguided attacks of those like Garcia, San Francisco will remain behind the times.

On-street car share pods in Portland, Oregon. Flickr photo: sfcityscape

Car share members in San Francisco could soon be picking up their vehicles from exclusive curbside parking spaces. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is launching a pilot program in mid-August to test at least ten on-street car share “pods” as part of its SFPark program.

“On-street car sharing pods (i.e., locations where users can pick up a car sharing vehicle) can encourage car sharing by increasing the visibility of car sharing, improving the proximity to trip origins, and increasing the total number of pods,” says an SFMTA document [pdf] on the pilot.

The pilot is a partnership between the SFMTA, the non-profit City CarShare, and the City Administrator’s Office and will include at least five confirmed pods on Polk and Greenwich, Taylor and Pacific, Harriet and Folsom, Valencia and 17th, and Clay and Fillmore.

If it proves successful, SFMTA CFO Sonali Bose said on-street car share spaces could be expanded citywide and rented by any car share company that fits the agency’s criteria.

The SFMTA says it plans to mark the spaces with paint and signage paid for by City CarShare, which would rent the spots for $150 per month and be responsible for maintenance.

The SF Board of Supervisors approved an amendment to the Transportation Code today that prohibits unpermitted vehicles from parking in on-street car share spaces. The SFMTA plans to produce stickers to mark permitted car share vehicles, the SFMTA document says.

All but one of the six originally proposed spots were approved at a public hearing on July 1 after neighbors voiced complaints about a spot to be located at Union and Hyde Streets. SFMTA staff said they would come back with an alternate proposal for the location, but the SFMTA Board of Directors is expected to green light the other spots in the coming weeks.

Bose said that five more locations, including the Glen Park and Dogpatch neighborhoods, are being developed after D10 Supervisor Malia Cohen voiced frustration that the southeast area wasn’t included during yesterday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting. City Administrator’s Office Fleet Manager Tom Fung said the spots were chosen based on criteria which included data on membership demand from City CarShare.

City CarShare, which aims to reduce automobile dependency and ownership, currently provides its members hourly usage of vehicles stored in hundreds of off-street pods throughout the Bay Area, located primarily in private parking lots.

In 2004, former Mayor Gavin Newsom opened several on-street “showcase” car share pods in front of City Hall, but they have been limited to that location.

Bose said that over the six-month pilot period, the SFMTA will evaluate pod usage, user satisfaction, and best practices before expanding to other locations.

Flickr photo: omega wolff

The hundreds of tour buses that roam San Francisco’s streets would be managed under the SF Park program as part of a proposal introduced today by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).

“As one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, tour buses often congest San Francisco’s streets,” said an SFMTA press release. “The passenger loading zones are crowded and some buses stay longer than necessary, encouraging other tour buses to double-park or use Muni stops. Also, with few places to park while their customers visit destinations, some buses end up circling city streets for hours.”

The plan would utilize several strategies based on SFPark’s parking management principles:

• Creating additional and more efficient tour bus passenger loading areas
• Improving passenger loading area time limit enforcement
• Providing metered on-street tour bus parking spaces where tour buses can wait while customers patronize a tourist area
• Helping to create overnight tour bus parking areas
• Potentially developing a permit system for tour buses to better manage and enforce tour bus parking and loading.

“Making it easier for tour buses to load, unload and park will help tour buses make an even greater contribution to San Francisco’s economy, while reducing impacts for residents,” said Chiu, who introduced the legislation at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “Tourists will access their destinations quickly, and everyone will benefit from safer, less congested streets.”

The SFMTA said it will also partner with the SF Police Department “to educate tour bus operators on restricted streets to prevent congestion in our neighborhoods” at the request of D2 Supervisor Mark Farrell.

“I’m pleased the SFMTA is focusing on a program to better manage the tour bus industry in our city,” Farrell said in a statement. “We also need to inform tour bus companies that they are prohibited from driving on certain streets and work with the SFPD to enforce those restrictions.”

The plan was developed “in partnership with tour bus operators, the Port of San Francisco, the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District, Supervisor David Chiu’s office and other stakeholders,” the SFMTA said.

The plan would first be implemented in Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39 and Union Square, the agency said.

Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA Chief Nat Ford demonstrate the iPhone application for SFPark. The first screen displayed is a warning not to check your device while driving. Photos: Bryan Goebel

San Francisco launched the world’s most innovative parking pilot today, a federally-funded trial that promises to revolutionize the way cities manage and price metered curb parking. SFPark will make it easier for motorists to find spaces in busy commercial districts, while reducing congestion, speeding Muni, and improving air quality and safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

The milestone for SFPark was celebrated at a packed press conference in the North Light Court at City Hall this morning. SFMTA Chief Nat Ford was joined by Mayor Ed Lee, parking guru and UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, and other dignitaries to announce the SFPark iPhone application and real-time parking availability data.

The demand-based parking pilot is being implemented over the coming months, covering 7,000 of the city’s 28,800 metered spaces and 12,250 garage spaces. Drivers, thanks to street sensors, or magnetometers, will be able to check their iPhone application (an app will be available for Android in the coming weeks), or computer, to get real-time data on the availability and cost of parking spaces in 15 commercial districts.

“How many of you have been dumb in your past? How many you have acted dumb? I know I have,” said Mayor Lee. “You know, when you’re driving around looking for a parking space and you’re double parking and you’re running around trying to see whether something will open, you’re dumb.”

“We want to be less dumb about this, and that’s why I’m so happy to launch today’s pilot program, SFPark,” Lee said. “That’s going to be our San Francisco version of congestion pricing.”

From left, Board of Supes Prez David Chiu, SFMTA Chief Nat Ford, UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, SFCTA Executive Director Jose Luis Moskovich, and Supervisor and TA Board Chair Ross Mirkarimi.

Lee said that parking meter translated in Chinese as “the lion machine,” and in Chinese culture “when you are confronted with a lion, the lion eats you.” Because of SFPark, he said, parking meters will be “less of a beast,” and drivers will be so happy they found a spot “you’ll want to Tweet it out.”

“SFPark creates a perfect marriage of technology, real-time information and pricing to make it easier for people to park here in downtown San Francisco,” said Federal Highway Administration Deputy Director Greg Nadeau. “This is not just about technology or pricing. It’s about making it easier to park in a major city and all the benefits that flow from addressing that one issue.”

Nadeau said the federal government was happy to award a $20 million grant to make SFPark happen, and that it was consistent with the livability goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation, led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Click to enlarge this image of the SFPark iPhone App, now available in the iTunes Store and the SFPark site. Image: SFMTA

“I’m so glad that we’re welcoming your not ordinary smart meter into San Francisco. Finally we have a smart meter that doesn’t cause headaches, it actually helps them,” joked Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority Board, in reference to the turmoil over PG&E’s electricity smart meters. “There are over 200,000 vehicles that enter San Francisco’s borders every single day and it’s incumbent upon us to do everything that we can to try to alleviate that congestion.”

Professor Shoup said the central idea behind SFPark is that you can’t set the right price for curb parking without first knowing how people are using that parking.

“SFPark sets a clear principle for setting the prices for curb parking, the lowest price the city can charge without creating a shortage. So, the right price for curb parking in San Francisco is rather like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: I know it when I see it.”

He pointed out that thirty percent of San Francisco households don’t own a car and the city uses parking meter revenue to subsidize Muni. Oftentimes, transit riders “are mired in traffic congested by richer drivers who are cruising for under-priced curb parking.”

“You pay every time you board a bus and that makes you think about whether you want to ride the bus. If you also pay the market price for curb parking every time you pull into a space it will also make you think about whether you want to drive,” Shoup told the crowd, adding that SFPark has the potential to tame the politics surrounding parking because “wanting more money will no longer justify raising the price of parking.”

Today’s City Hall event marked the culmination of years of work by the SFMTA on the project, which initially faced a wave of resistance, and now enjoys the full support of the city’s political establishment. SFMTA staffers, led by SFPark Manager Jay Primus and SFMTA CFO Sonali Bose, worked tirelessly over the past three years conducting outreach to elected officials, merchants and neighborhood groups.

“The people who are working on SFPark are the smartest and most talented and most overworked civil servants I have ever met,” said Shoup. “If SFPark is a success, it will be in large part due to the heroic determination to make it work here.”

And if it doesn’t work?

“Well, then you can always blame it on a dumb professor from Los Angeles,” Shoup said.

"I think SFPark will give San Francisco the best of both worlds. If it works it will make San Francisco an even better place to live and work and visit and do business. It will be another feather in the city's cap and other cities around the world will copy you," said UCLA Professor and parking guru Donald Shoup.

One of SFPark's 5,000 "coin and card" meters. SFPark will result in less congestion in busy commercial corridors, which will mean improved conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Using the new credit-card enabled parking meters. Photo: SFMTA

The central principle of San Francisco’s cutting-edge parking management program, SFPark, comes right from Econ 101. If there are more people looking for parking than there are parking spaces (i.e. demand is greater than supply) adjust the price of parking until there is enough turnover on a given street, or roughly one free parking space per block. Sounds simple in theory, right?

On the other hand, implementing the principle in real-world conditions at over 6,000 curbside parking spaces and 11,500 off-street spaces in city-owned garages is very complicated. The federal government, which has paid for most of the program with approximately $20 million in grants, wants proof that San Francisco can meet its stated goals of reducing traffic and speeding up transit with smart parking management. That will require copious data and extensive analysis.

Most importantly for parking managers at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), they want the public to like it. If a driver doesn’t get to a parking space quickly, thus reducing the cruising for spaces that generates up to 40 percent of local traffic in some cities, then the program won’t deliver on its goal. Similarly if drivers aren’t happy with the convenience of the new meters or other payment options, like pay-by-phone.

Jay Primus, SFPark’s manager, understands the significance of his work and has been spending most of his waking hours for the last three years at work or conducting outreach with businesses, politicians and community groups.

As I sat down recently with Primus in his windowless office on the top floor of the SFMTA building at 1 South Van Ness Avenue, I was impressed with the impeccable order he kept. Two rows of more than twenty manila envelopes were lined neatly on a table near his desk, each representing a different part of the project, from a folder bearing the name of the communications consultants he hired, to another for grant obligation deadlines to the US Department of Transportation.

Several enormous maps of San Francisco and the SFPark areas adorned his office walls. One map, approximately 5 feet by 5 feet, showed every publicly available parking space in San Francisco and represented the first census of parking spaces conducted in any city in the world. On another wall, Primus had a scrolling work-flow plan tacked right above a cover story in the tabloid San Francisco Examiner with the inflammatory headline, “Parking Privileges to Be Revoked!”

Primus, a tall man with a studious mien and a quiet voice, worked as a transportation planner for a private firm before joining the SFMTA in 2007 to direct SFPark. He measures most of his words carefully, often stopping mid-sentence to replace technical jargon with more pedestrian language.

Primus tells me the public’s reaction to the new meters that accept credit cards has been “largely positive.” He acknowledges that some have complained that the meters are not easy to read at night, but he says increasing the back-lighting uses more power and shortens battery life.

In addition to the information the SFMTA will gather from the new parking meters about how people choose to pay and how long they pay, the agency has installed occupancy sensors in the pavement in SFPark areas that provide real-time information on how long cars are parking at spaces. When I ask him about the information the agency is already collecting, his eyes light up. “One of the most exciting things about SFpark is the fabulous, unprecedented data set,” he said. “I do believe it’s the first of its kind.”

The Unprecedented Data Set

Primus and his team will cross-reference those parking data from the meters and sensors with citation data; travel demand data from regional and city roadway sensors; transit boardings from BART and Muni; parking tax and sales tax returns; collision statistics from the SFPD and the state; manual data collection such as driver intercept surveys, parking search time surveys, double parking counts, disabled placard use, occupancy information in residential neighborhoods adjacent to SFPark areas; and exogenous statistics like the cost of gasoline, the unemployment rate, the consumer price index and hourly precipitation.

Comparing parking data to transit boardings on Muni is not trivial, Primus explains, because he will have to demonstrate the effect smarter parking management has on transit travel time and transit delays. If there are open spaces at the curb, in theory there should less double-parking and fewer delays to buses. Measuring parking and sales tax returns or gas prices should let the SFMTA know how much of the reduction in traffic is due to SFPark and how much is due to larger economic patterns. He even hopes to show that better parking management reduces traffic collisions and increases safety as drivers cruise less for an elusive space.

The obvious implication about the status quo in San Francisco and every other city that doesn’t collect this information is that policy makers know embarrassingly little about how the standards, prices and regulations they put on parking actually effect traffic, the way people park, or even how people feel about parking (and in civic life, parking is almost as emotive an issue as the crime rate).

Donald Shoup, the UCLA economics professor and author of The High Cost of Free Parking, whose work is the theoretical underpinning of SFPark, has a favorite adage that he quoted to Streetsblog when critiquing how parking policies are currently set nearly everywhere: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

SFPark should give San Francisco managers an unparalleled road map whereby they can make educated policy decisions and they can measure the impact those have in real-time.

Improving the Public Perception of Parking

“We’ve done a lot of outreach with SFPark and have talked to a lot of community groups,” said Primus. “People we talk to are sometimes skeptical about the SFMTA’s intentions, that somehow SFPark is meant to gouge drivers for additional parking revenue. That’s just not the case.”

He is actually optimistic the program will become popular with drivers, for numerous reasons. “We hope to earn people’s trust that SFMTA’s parking management can help achieve our goals for the city,” he said.

Click to enlarge this image of the SFPark iPhone App, which will be available soon in the iTunes Store. Image: SFMTA

In addition to the convenience of paying at the meter with credit cards and extending meter limits up to four hours in certain areas, when the SFMTA officially launches the program later this spring, it will provide a map with real-time occupancy and price rates at every meter and parking garage in SFPark. The SFMTA will also release an iPhone app at the launch, with other app formats to follow.

The maps will color-code blocks, with dark blue indicating there are available parking spaces, light blue showing fewer spaces, and red suggesting drivers park elsewhere. Each public garage in the program will be indicated with a large P icon and will be represented with the same color scheme.

Just as drivers look at real-time traffic information on Google Maps, for instance, Primus imagines drivers will check for parking availability at their destination even before they get in the car. What about those drivers who would check their phones while driving? Primus explains that the app uses the phone’s GPS and has an automatic warning if it detects the phone is moving faster than 10 miles per hour. This feature, said Primus, will “remind people that it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving.”

The map and the mobile app will also display pricing information in various shades of green (“for money,” said Primus), with details on parking rates by hour and by location at the tip or one’s fingertips. All real-time data will be made available on an open API for third-party developers as well.

One thing the SFMTA won’t do is give availability by individual parking space, though they have that specificity internally. “We don’t’ want people to race to get to a space or fight over spaces they feel ownership of,” said Primus.

Perhaps the most important part of improving the convenience of parking with SFPark is an option to pay by phone at meters and garages throughout the city. Though the service won’t be activated until later this year, and still needs SFMTA board of directors approval, Primus said they intend to offer the pay-by-phone service at every one of the nearly 27,000 meters citywide.

This would allow anyone who has signed up with a credit card to pay for parking through their phones, to get updates automatically to their phone when time is running out, and to pay for more parking with the touch of a button, so long as they aren’t exceeding time limits. No more leaving a restaurant or a business meeting to feed the meter, said Primus. A similar service is already operational in over 100 cities throughout North America and Europe.

Long-Term Impacts of the Trial

By law, the SFPark meter rates will only change once a month at the most, so drivers shouldn’t expect a price shock. Nor will the rates likely change that dramatically, according to Primus. In some cases, where there are many vacant spaces in an area, the meter rates could come down.

No one will know how it all works before the trial starts, but the SFMTA expects to gain efficiencies in meter maintenance and enforcement. As Primus noted, the meters will instantly communicate with his database when they go out of service, so meter technicians won’t have to guess or do broad sweeps to find malfunctioning meters.

Enforcement will be much more precise as well, though Primus doesn’t expect to see ticket blitzes. Rather, he argued, with longer time limits and easier ways to pay, such as pay-by-phone, he thinks PCOs will write fewer tickets for meter violations. “We want PCOs to have more time available to enforce other issues, such as double parking, sidewalk parking or driveway parking, issues that effect transportation, quality of life and access more generally,” he said.

In fact, Primus expects meter-related citations to drop significantly as people find it easier to pay. Rather than the current “punitive” ratio of $34 million in meter revenue and $30 million in meter-related fine revenue each year, Primus hopes to see most of the revenue coming from proper payment. “People pay for parking one way or another, either at the meter or with parking tickets. For everyone’s benefit we want everyone to pay at the meter to reduce the number of parking-related tickets we have to give,” he said.

Donald Shoup didn’t mask his excitement about the impending start of SFPark, which he characterized as the most significant example of parking reform to come in the six years since he published his 750 page epic (the book has been so popular it will be released in paperback later this year). Shoup said “academics are just drooling about all this data” and he predicted legions of PhD dissertations to result from SFPark.

Most importantly for cities, though, he hoped to see a direct relationship in the data between parking and economic activity. Good parking management “can make the whole transportation system perform better because there is less cruising and it will make the whole economy perform better,” he said. “If this relationship appears in the data, it will show people this is a very powerful tool for economic development in cities.”

In the future, we won't all be zipping around in our little hovercraft bubbles (as imagined by Disney in 1958)...

All of these transportation improvements are happening already – they’re examples of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that are being heralded in a new report as a way to set the bar higher for transportation efficiency. Transportation for America, ITS America and other groups have teamed up to urge Congress to include technological enhancements in its transportation policies. They’re hoping these changes can help us get more out of our streets without building sprawl-inducing highways.

...but we will be cutting traffic with parking sensors that allow cities to set curbside prices based on demand. Top image: Disney Magic Highway promo. Bottom image: SFPark.

ITS is a catch-all phrase for the ways digital technology can be applied to all modes of transportation. There are familiar forms of ITS on highways. E-ZPass has been around for about 15 years already. Electronic highway signs warning of delays or detours are becoming commonplace. Now, Google traffic maps supplement radio reports to help drivers pick more efficient routes. Add to the mix Zipcar and other car-sharing services, or vanpools with real-time tracking, and ITS becomes not just a method to move cars more efficiently, but to make streets more efficient by taking cars off the road.

“The technologies already exist,” says Lilly Shoup, the report author at T4A. “Now it’s a matter of being more strategic in integrating them throughout the transportation network.”

Integration with infrastructure and vehicles is key – and it’s why this is the moment to shine the light on these technologies. Smart phone-based ride-sharing or bus-tracking, for example, wouldn’t have had much impact five years ago. But the proliferation of smart phones has made these real options. Building a transportation network based on technology is more possible when that technology is abundant in all the places you’re trying to link together.

And it can have a real environmental impact.

Japan credits technology with helping improve traffic flows and reducing emissions by 11 million tons, according to T4A. And a recent GAO report found that the benefits of deploying a real-time traffic information system across the country would outweigh the cost by a factor of 25 to 1.

Compare that to what the report calls “the more conventional solution of adding new highway capacity, which has a benefit-to-cost ratio estimated at 2.7 to 1.”

T4A, ITS America and their partners want the federal government to embrace these new technologies. Their recommendations are pretty loose: establishing emissions reductions targets and incentivizing technological innovations at the state and regional levels. With the variety of technological options out there, they aren’t prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach to cities and regions.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) quietly introduced a bill on transportation optimization right before the House broke for recess, but details of the legislation are not yet available.

In a refreshing turn, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni and manages the streets of San Francisco, has produced an informative and whimsical animated short explaining how their dynamic parking management pilot, SFPark, will work.

Unlike the maddeningly obtuse SFMTA website, the video (and pretty much everything else about the SFPark.org website) uses a cute Sim-City aesthetic to explain an otherwise wonky parking policy. It's an interesting approach to take with complicated material, but I think the video does a great job of demonstrating how the system should work, and it does so in just under three minutes.

After covering this beat for over a year and a half, I also learned a few things. For instance, most people don't realize the cost of parking could come down if demand is anemic in a particular area, but I didn't realize the price could theoretically go as low as $.25/hour if the demand requires it. If the good parking managers at the SFMTA are looking to blunt possible public criticism, I think they will do well to highlight the fact that rates can decline.

Parking guru Donald Shoup already picked up on the sim and tweeted it to his followers, calling it a "great new video."

Will something as cute as this do anything to ameliorate the visceral rage parking meters inspire in many drivers? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Click image to enlarge: the new single-space SFPark meters. Image: SFMTA.

San Francisco's parking and traffic managers know the public is going to love or hate the new SFPark demand-based parking management trial depending on how it delivers on the fundamental promises made from the beginning: The trial will make parking more convenient and efficient.

Perhaps no piece of this experience will be as important as the new parking meters. If they function as advertised, they will make paying for parking as simple as a swipe of a credit card and they will de-stigmatize the visceral revulsion that many drivers have when they think of parking meters.

If they aren't simple and intuitive, you can expect the meter-hating piranhas to swarm.

"When we talk about parking at community meetings, people are deeply skeptical of the SFMTA's intentions when it comes to parking management," said Jay Primus, SFPark project manager at the the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni and manages parking policy. 

"The explicit goal of [SFPark] is to make parking easier to find, and once you find it, make it easier to pay for, more convenient. That's an important goal in a transit-first city," said Primus. "It's not good for anyone not to be able to find a space and end up circling around."

The SFMTA will begin installing the first 200 of its new IPS single-space parking meters early next week in Hayes Valley. Rather than remove the poles and tear holes in the sidewalk, the new installation is as simple as detaching the crown of the existing meters and replacing them with a new interface that promises to be much easier to use. By August the SFMTA will install a few hundred Duncan multi-space pay stations, the same vendor that manufactured the city's current motorcycle meters.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the installation, at least to people who get excited about parking meters, is that customers will be able to pay with credit cards at all the new meters in addition to coins and SFMTA parking cards.

The SFPark "Coin and Card" single-space meters will replace approximately 5,000 meters across the city in the pilot areas, though the SFMTA has already experimented with a small batch of them in Hayes Valley over the past year. According to Primus, user response with those meters has been very positive. In surveys, drivers said the ability to use credit cards made the experience relatively hassle free.

Ross Mirkarimi, District 5 Supervisor who represents portions of the Hayes Valley trial area, corroborated Primus' analysis of the public reaction to the trial. "I've talked to a number of people and they like it," said Mirkarimi. "People who approach me unsolicited tell me they like it."

Click image to enlarge map of SFPark trial areas. Image: SFMTA.

To underscore the idea that the new meters are not simply a more technologically savvy way of nabbing parking scofflaws, Primus said the convenience of paying for parking and the elimination of time limits should lead to better payment rates and a reduction in parking fines. Right now, the SFMTA collects about $30 million a year in revenue from parking meters and about $90 million a year in parking tickets, though only $17 million of that is meter related (half of the rest of the fines are from street sweeping tickets).

Still, Primus isn't satisfied with that reasonably healthy ratio of parking meter to fine revenue (New York City parking tickets net five times more than meter revenue). Part of the purpose of SFPark is to move away from a punitive, citation-oriented parking system, said Primus.

"Just as we'd love everyone to pay when they ride Muni, we'd love everyone to pay at the meter and we'd love not to give any tickets," he said. "By making it really easy to pay and extending time limits, we expect meter revenue to go up and the number of citations we give to go down."

As with any new technology, it will take some time for drivers to familiarize themselves with how it works, so the SFMTA will have "meter greeters" out as the installation progresses to answer questions the public might have about the new payment options. They will also work with merchants on the commercial corridors where the meters are being installed to inform them of the new features.

With so many negative headlines about Muni service cuts and budget deficits, the SFMTA is hopeful its parking meter pilot will get attention for the right reasons.

"Installing better parking meters is just the first step towards making parking easier to find and easier to pay for," said SFMTA CEO Nat Ford. "SFPark will help to reduce congestion and air pollution, and promises to support our overall system-wide efforts.

Photo: Thomas Hawk.

The June 18th hearing is part of the public process for adding additional meters, which the agency routinely does each year. According to SFMTA documents, the agency adds approximately 400- 500 new meters on average each year.

Some of the 1310 proposed new meters are in SFPark pilot areas, some are not, and the SFMTA insisted the installation of the meters be separate from the innovative parking management trial.

"The locations proposed for new meters were prioritized based on several key factors, including where there already are existing time limits and blocks that that are immediately adjacent or within existing metered areas, in part to reduce circling for free parking in certain areas," said SFMTA spokesperson Murray Bond. Bond called the overlap with SFPark areas coincidental.

The new meters are also not part of the controversial proposal to extend parking meter hours on Sundays in select commercial districts, a move that the SFMTA will not likely consider until September at the earliest.

While these new meters are not part of the SFPark pilot, they do share a new technology associated with every SFPark meter: They will accept credit cards, a convenience the agency hopes will ease frustration with meters, reduce parking citations and improve payment options.

"We add parking meters year in, year out," said Bond, which he argued improved conditions for drivers and transit riders.

After the hearing, the SFMTA Board of Directors will presumably assent to adding the meters, which would be installed by January 2011. In the process of approving the 2010-11 SFMTA budget, the board accepted the proposal to add an additional 5,400 meters in the near future, which would bring the city's total meter count to over 30,000.

Though this is significant, a recent parking census found there are more than 440,000 public parking spaces in San Francisco, so the metered spaces are still a small fraction of the total.

The majority of the newly metered spaces are proposed for areas that currently have time limits of one, two or four hours. According to the SFMTA, time limits are difficult to enforce, so the meter installation will help to better manage parking demand in those areas.

Meter rates will match existing rates in proximate meter zones where that is applicable. In areas where there are no current meters, the rates will start at $1 per hour and will be adjusted based on demand. These include parts of SoMa, Civic Center, Cathedral Hill, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Mission, according to the SFMTA's documents.

"Parking management in San Francisco requires many different customer convenience and engineering strategies," SFMTA CEO Nat Ford said in a statement. "We want to make parking easier and more flexible in order to reduce traffic congestion, emissions and to help business districts thrive."

Click to enlarge map of proposed new meters near Fisherman's Wharf. Image: SFMTA.

Click to enlarge map of proposed new meters in SOMA. Image: SFMTA.

Click to enlarge map of proposed new meters in Civic Center. Image: SFMTA.

Click to enlarge map of proposed new meters in Inner Mission. Image: SFMTA.

Photo: Matthew Roth.

The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which sets parking policy and runs Muni, has completed the installation of 8,255 vehicle sensors in the SFPark pilot areas, sensors that allow the agency to track vehicle parking patterns in real-time with unprecedented clarity. 

"The parking sensors are at the heart of SFPark. For the first time, we're going to have a really exciting data set about what's really happening on the street," said Jay Primus, SFPark project manager for the SFMTA. "If you were to ask us now what parking turnover is, or what availability is, or any other parking metric is, we don't really know."

Primus said that prior to installing the vehicle sensors, the data the agency had on parking patterns was limited by how they were collected: The agency used to send interns out with clipboards to observe parking, a method that could not accurately account for how drivers park on more than a few block faces and certainly couldn't give a comprehensive real-time picture to help managers improve parking policies.

The SFPark trial will begin later this summer and run for two years at 6,000 curbside spaces and 12,250 garage spaces in seven commercial areas around the city. 

Primus noted that other cities like Redwood City, Old Pasadena and New York City have already experimented with Shoup's demand-responsive parking, but none of them has the benefit of the extensive sensor system, which will create one of the most robust parking data sets in the world.

One of the primary goals of SFPark, according to Primus, is to better inform drivers where there are available parking spaces so they spend less time cruising to find an open spot and the sensors are integral to this process.

"We can make that data available in real time to drivers before or during their trip. It should make for more informed travel choices," said Primus. "People can decide whether they want to drive in. If they do, they get matched up with a parking spot more quickly and therefore get off the road faster and deliver the kinds of benefits we're looking for for the overall transportation system, even for people who aren't in cars."

SFMTA worker applying epoxy to a surface-mounted sensor. Photo: SFMTA.

The surface mounted sensor. Photo: Streetline.

The embedded sensor. Photo: Streetline.

⁞

One of the first new iPhone apps to take advantage of this data was released this week in the iTunes Store and is called San Francisco Parking by developer by Nick Capizzani, a recent graduate from Purdue University who founded Mobile Parking Apps. The application maps publicly available parking garages and includes hourly rates, monthly and early bird rates where applicable, and general information about meter rates and street sweeping throughout the city.

The app also includes motorcycle meter rates by zone and a feature that queries Craigslist for parking-related ads, from private monthly garage offerings to people hoping to make a buck on game-day parking near AT&T Park. It also has a feature to help users find their cars after parking them and a timer that counts down the time remaining on a meter.

Though it isn't available currently, San Francisco Parking will soon have BART parking garage and lot information through a partnership with Parking Carma, which monitors real-time occupancy data at BART facilities.

A screen grab that shows meter rates in downtown areas.

Capizanni admits his focus is not the congestion reduction strategies in SFPark, but simply making it easier to find the space you want and to compare rates and discounts at various garages.

"I'm trying to find them the cheapest, quickest spot, to make it convenient for [drivers]," said Capizzani. "I wanted a centralized location where everyone could find out all their parking information"

Still, apps like this might have ancillary congestion reduction benefits.

The SFMTA's Jay Primus, Project Manager for SFPark, has said he expected a proliferation of apps and more information about parking supply would lead to "less circling for parking, less wasted fuel, and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. It could help to save people both time and money."

At a minimum, San Francisco Parking will be well positioned to take advantage of the SFPark real-time data once it is released by the SFMTA later this year.

SFMTA Board Director James McCray, Chair Tom Nolan and Director Shirley Breyer Black at today's meeting. Board secretary Roberta Boomer in foreground.

SFMTA Chair Tom Nolan said he wanted to make the scheduled service cuts "less burdensome on riders" by using some of the state money, and directed staff to come back with "a series of proposals to do that." Specifically, $17 million would be used in this fiscal year, and $19 million carried over to 2011-12. A much smaller portion would be used to lessen service cuts.

"Seventeen million dollars will cover $12 million in existing deficit that we have for the current year, and then there'll be approximately $5 million after that we could use to put some service back on the street, at least until July 1st, in terms of the service cuts, and/or rollback or delay the service cuts until July 1st," SFMTA Chief Nat Ford said in an interview.

Director Cameron Beach called the state money "alleged," because the SFMTA has not gotten a check yet. Indeed, the timing of the funds remained unclear. The SFMTA is struggling to fill a $55 million budget gap in the next fiscal year and a $45 million hole the year after.

Ford said he was hopeful about some impending stimulus funds for capital projects that could be diverted into operations. "We're trying to buy time and let some of these things mature before we cut the service, frankly." He said while the next budget cycle promises to be full of "difficult choices," he sees things improving in 2012.

"We've got one more year of stiff belt tightening. However, in year two [2012], we have a very manageable deficit and light at the end of the tunnel."

SFMTA Chief Nat Ford is interviewed by ABC7 reporter Wayne Freedman at today's meeting.

The board meanwhile voted 5-2 to extend the fiscal emergency declaration for the next fiscal year, something CFO Sonali Bose described as "setting up an insurance policy," with directors James McCray and Shirley Breyer Black opposed. The declaration allows the SFMTA to implement fare hikes and service cuts without California environmental review. 

"It gives us some flexibility as we go into uncertain times," said Nolan. 

The vote came after a few hours of public testimony from at least 45 speakers, many of whom decried the cuts, and criticized fare inspectors for allegedly harassing some of the transit system's most vulnerable riders, including non-English speaking and undocumented riders. 

Ford, asked to respond to the complaints by Nolan, denied the agency is profiling riders, and said their main goal is to target areas that have high incidents of fare evasion.

Many speakers were also doubtful the Muni crisis would improve anytime soon.

"This is not going to get fixed in two years. It's just not, and I think some of you know that, and it's going to require making some really hard political decisions," said transit advocate Sue Vaughan.

Parking Meter Extension Pilot Moving Forward

The SFMTA Board also seemed to be supportive of a 90 day pilot project that would begin June 1 to extend parking meter hours to Sundays in six business districts across the city. Though CFO Sonali Bose said not one neighborhood group has stepped forward to publicly support it, many individuals and merchants have backed it.

SFMTA Director Malcolm Heinicke seemed the most enthusiastic. "I think we should move forward with this pilot project and resist any temptation to back away from it simply because we've got new money." His only question was how much the pilot would cost, to which Bose explained that it was being done in conjunction with SFPark, one of the most innovative parking management pilots in the US., and costing the agency very little.

The pilot demonstration areas for enforcement on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. would cover a portion of downtown San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf (where Port meters are already on until 7 p.m.), Chestnut/Union Streets, the Inner Richmond, Hayes Valley and West Portal. Those areas were chosen because they already have SFPark sensors or are about to get them. In Fisherman's Wharf, the meters will run until 9 p.m. on weekdays, and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, according to the proposal:

As part of this pilot demonstration, existing time limits at normal metered parking spaces will be increased to four hours in Fisherman’s Wharf, Chestnut/Union, Downtown, and Hayes Valley areas (time limits at yellow and green zones will remain unchanged). In addition, those areas (not including Union Street) will also receive new parking meters that accept credit cards in addition to coins and the SFMTA Parking Card. In the West Portal and Inner Richmond  areas, parking meters and time limits will remain unchanged.  

Though Mayor Gavin Newsom has opposed extending meter hours across the city, he recently said he might be open to doing it on Sundays, perhaps next year. As we've reported extensively on Streetsblog, many cities -- Los Angeles, Long Beach, Glendale, Pasadena and Montreal among them -- have implemented parking enforcement on evenings and Sundays.

Although some merchants have expressed concerns, the SFMTA points out in its pilot proposal that "parking meters are an effective tool for promoting business vitality by helping to create open parking spaces so that customers can easily find a parking space." The agency plans to do a lot of outreach and preparation for the pilot.

Ford, after getting an opinion from legal counsel, told the board that he has the authority to implement the pilot and does not need any further approval.

The total number of spaces, as Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced on his Youtube site, is 441,541. Of the total, over 280,000 are on-street spaces, 25,000 of which are metered. For just the on-street spaces, that is roughly the equivalent area of Golden Gate Park.

"Most cities have very little knowledge of their parking inventory," said Rachel Weinberger, a planning professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former transportation policy adviser to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Weinberger called the parking census a "tremendous effort."

"Without the basic knowledge [city planners] have no basis on which to make decisions about future supply policy, about current management policy or even about how their transportation systems are working."

Don Shoup, planning professor at UCLA and author of the definitive book on the history of parking, The High Cost of Free Parking, was excited to hear the news. "San Francisco’s census of parking spaces is a great achievement, and the first of its kind anywhere," he said.

The release of the public parking space census coincides with the redesign of the website for SFPark, an occupancy-based parking management trial funded with a $19.8 million federal congestion mitigation grant, which among many objectives, seeks to manage the supply of parking by adjusting the cost to match demand. To put that in laymen's terms, if SFPark works well, there should be enough parking at the curb so that drivers don't have to circle the block endlessly searching for that elusive space. By gradually adjusting the price of parking up or down in the pilot areas, the city expects to create roughly one or two free spaces per block face at any time, the original purpose of parking meters when they were introduced in the 1930s.

Jay Primus, who directs the SFPark trial for the MTA, said the parking census was the first step toward a better understanding of how parking works in San Francisco, filling a void where city planners could only make rough estimates previously. "If you can't manage what you can't count, doing a careful survey and documenting all publicly available parking was a critical first step for the MTA for how we manage parking more intelligently," he said.

Primus explained that his team combed through copious records to determine total public garage spaces, including the MTA's own facilities and city tax records for private facilities. For on-street unmetered spaces, he sent interns out across the city to count every fifth block, a 20 percent sample size. At every free opportunity, he sends out more interns and recently estimated they had increased their sample size to 35 percent. Time willing, he hoped to count every single space on every street.

Aside from satisfying his own penchant for good data, Primus said the data was essential if they expect the SFPark pilots to succeed in making parking more convenient for drivers and reducing traffic.

Click image to enlarge. Map depicting SFPark trial areas. Courtesy: sfpark.org

In order to expand the impact of the data, the MTA has released it to third-party developers on the Data SF Website, which the agency hopes will spur creative applications for smart phones much as software engineers have done with the MTA's route and schedule information. With these applications, Primus expected to "see less circling for parking, less wasted fuel, and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. It could help to save people both time and money," he said.

"San Francisco is on the forefront of parking management," said Mayor Newsom, who has championed open data through DataSF. "By combining this data with our innovative approach to local government open data, we continue to transform government to work better for all of us."

Beyond the benefits to drivers and the savings from reduced congestion, the parking census data will inform the general discussion of parking supply and development, which can become highly contentious and emotional.

Jason Henderson, a San Francisco State University Geography Professor, said San Francisco Planning Commission hearings sometimes devolve into unhelpful arguments over the supply of parking without good data to back up either side's assertions.

"It's very important to have as fact-based a conversation as possible," said Henderson.

The San Francisco Planning Department's Joshua Switzky agreed with the importance of the data. "It's the kind of information that always comes up during review of big projects, especially when parking is being debated," he said. "Everyone -- from neighborhood groups, to planning commissioners, to transit advocates -- wants to know the general parking supply in an area."

Now that the publicly accessible spaces have been counted, the MTA plans to move forward with a count of private garages. Some of those interviewed for this story imagined there could be as many as 800,000 spaces in total, or at least one parking space for every San Franciscan.

Should San Francisco have a parking space for every person residing in the city? Should the city continue to mandate one new parking space for every residential unit built, the metric required in planning code in much of the city?

Using data from the MTA's Transportation Fact Sheet, Weinberger noted that despite 28.5 percent of San Francisco households not owning cars, "enough households have multiple vehicles that the city's population, collectively, owns over 8 percent more vehicles than households."

"As we all know, the more parking there is available, the more convenient car use becomes relative to other travel options," said Weinberger. "The more convenient car use is the more likely a car will be used."

Shoup marveled at how much parking in San Francisco is free, especially when compared with the price of housing. "One surprising result is that 72 percent of all the publicly-available parking spaces in the city are free," he said. "In San Francisco, housing is expensive for people but free for most cars."

Todd Litman, the director of the Canadian think-tank Victoria Transport Policy Institute, said the census showed that "in many situations there is not actually a shortage of parking spaces, rather, the available spaces are not being well-utilized." Litman said the solutions were parking management strategies such as more car sharing, efficient pricing, and parking cash out, which "can address parking problems in ways that also help achieve economic, social and environmental objectives."

All the parking experts agreed that San Francisco was leading the way in the effort to better understand the relationship between parking policy and the context of the urban environment.

"Parking policy is a pretty powerful tool for shaping street use, urban fabric and mode choice," said Weinberger. "The true power in this information rests on what the city decides to use it for."

Graphic: ITDP

A report released today by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [PDF]
highlights the new wave of parking policy innovation that could pay
huge dividends for sustainable transport and livable streets. If your
city aspires to make streets safe, improve the quality of transit, and
foster bicycling, your city needs a coherent parking policy.

"There
was a 35-year parking coma during which the federal
government, cities, and environmentalists forgot why parking was
important," said John Kaehny, who co-authored the report with Matthew
Rufo and UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger. "This study shows people
are starting wake up and understand
that parking is one of most important influences on how cities work and
what form of travel people choose to use."

The early 70s
parking limits beat back the cycle of more car storage, wider roadways,
and greater sprawl that decimates urban areas. The underlying idea was
simple: Manage the supply of parking, and you can reduce the demand for
driving. Yet in America this notion has gone largely unheeded, even in
cities.

Instead, the authors note, parking policy is
typically divorced from transportation policy and goals like reducing
congestion or encouraging walking and biking. In most of our urban
areas, planners determine parking volumes using suburban standards,
drawing heavily on ill-suited recommendations in "Parking Generation,"
a manual published by the Institute for Transportation Engineers. The
product is abundant, cheap parking — much of which sits unused most of
the time.

Fully 99 percent of car trips in America end in
free parking, an incentive that crowds out all other modes of
transportation. "Even when the price of parking is free," said
Weinberger, "it’s far from free."

The resulting congestion
impedes the effectiveness of transit. Traffic volumes and
double-parking make bicycling less pleasant and more dangerous.
Walkable environments give way to curb cuts, dead walls, and
land-devouring parking facilities that spread destinations farther
apart. The whole vicious cycle is heavily subsidized, with the cost of
parking absorbed into the price of everything from housing to movie
tickets.

"In a time of economic distress, we can’t afford
to continue these policies,"  said ITDP’s Michael Replogle. "Continuing
to subsidize parking is very costly for all of us."

Surface parking in downtown Minneapolis. Photo: ITDP/Zachary Korb

The
good news is that some cities are introducing more rational parking
policies guided by coherent goals. The ITDP report pulls together case
studies of several places where these reforms are underway –
information that the authors hope will spur other cities to take
notice. "American parking policy is like bike policy a decade
ago," said Kaehny. "Cities are doing lots of different and interesting
things. But they aren’t sharing what they learn in an organized way,
nor are the feds helping spread the word about what is working and what
isn’t."

In San Francisco and New York,
programs to bring the price of curbside parking more in line with
off-street parking are reducing the incentive to cruise endlessly for a
cheap spot. In Portland, planners have reduced parking requirements for
new development near transit lines, helping to improve walkability and
increase ridership.

This parking structure in downtown Boulder is wrapped with street-level retail. Image: ITDP/City of Boulder

Boulder
provides an intriguing study in parking management as an economic
development tool. This small Colorado city is one of the only places
that introduced new parking policies during the 80s and 90s. After
deciding they couldn’t compete with suburban malls by imitating them,
local merchants led an effort that effectively capped the volume of
downtown parking and directed revenue from parking facilities to
improve transit, walking, and bicycling.

Other cities will be able to replicate the innovations in the report, said UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking.
"Weinberger, Kaehny, and Rufo show how cities can begin to repair the
damage caused by decades of bad planning for parking," he said. "The
case studies of six cities that have reformed their parking policies
provide clear blueprints that any city can adapt to fit the local
circumstances."

The recommendations in the MTA's new parking study, which Streetsblog reported on yesterday, are designed to make it easier for customers to find a place to park when they visit businesses on evenings and Sundays. The study comprehensively examines the demand for parking in all of the city's major commercial districts, aiming to extend meter hours only when and where demand overwhelms the number of available spots. If the MTA doesn't act quickly and strategically to sell the changes to businesses, however, the study's great promise could be overwhelmed by protests from merchants who don't yet see how the plan will benefit them.

"It gives the city more opportunity to just sting the patrons," said Dallas Udovich, president of the Taraval Parkside Merchants Association, and owner of Oceanside Sheet Metal.

In interviews with business owners and merchant associations across the city, it's clear the MTA has a big task ahead of it: conveying to merchants that extending meter hours beyond 6 p.m. on weekdays and Saturday, and adding enforcement on Sundays, will ultimately make it more convenient for their driving customers to park.

"I hope the MTA moves very cautiously on this whole issue and they had better do their homework, or there will be a revolt similar to what happened in Oakland," said Ken Cleaveland, Director of Government and Public Affairs for the San Francisco Building Owners and Management Association.

The MTA, though, is now armed with a formidable body of data collected during a 90-day citywide study period that it hopes to distribute as widely as possible. The agency did a considerable amount of outreach, conducting informal interviews with many merchant associations, business owners, residents, and neighborhood groups. Among residents, forty-two percent supported weeknight meter enforcement completely, and an additional 15 percent supported it if certain conditions are met, compared to 40 percent who opposed it. A total of 42 percent of residents supported Sunday enforcement completely or conditionally, compared to 52 percent who said "no." While the numbers supporting the changes may seem low, the figures actually exceeded the agency's expectations.

Christopher Duderstadt, who owns Christopher Duderstadt Machine Design near 10th Avenue and Irving Street, said it's important merchants take a closer look at the study. "I can understand how merchants that didn't understand the study would say, 'well, people aren't going to come to my business if they don't have free parking,'" he said, "[but] the reality is, people can't come to their business if there's no parking."

Representatives from merchant groups and community benefit districts (CBDs) in the Castro, the Mission, Noe Valley and North Beach all had concerns about the plan, including impacts on customers and residents. Several also felt the MTA should focus first on tackling disabled parking placard abuse. Since many of the groups Streetsblog talked to were interviewed by the MTA during the study process, some of their biggest concerns were already addressed in the plan, including extending meter time limits on weeknights and Sundays to four hours, and extending weeknight hours on a per-district basis, depending on demand, instead of increasing enforcement to 10 p.m. across the city.

Though many business groups cited concerns about the plan's impact on residents, Duderstadt said the study strongly suggests that residents will benefit as well. "One of the criticisms of the study is what would be the impact on the neighborhood, would it push commercial customers into the neighborhood? [The MTA] would argue it works just the other direction: if you provide an open space per block, people don't circle the block," causing congestion as visitors look for spots on residential streets.

Click to expand: Many of the city's most popular retail streets are overwhelmed with drivers looking for parking spaces on Sundays. Download PDF here.

In Union Square, the study found on-street parking is scarce at nearly any hour. Linda Mjellem, a spokesperson for the Union Square Association, said she'd welcome a program that encourages drivers to use the existing off-street parking structures, which are often far from full. In fact, the study recommends "[reducing] hourly meter rates in SFMTA parking lots when and where parking occupancy does not exceed 60 percent," in conjunction with expanding meter hours, which might ultimately nudge drivers toward the structures.

Mjellem touched on an approach that the city has been more open to recently: temporary pilot programs. "I like that they've been willing to pilot some things, and not fix them in cement," said Mjellem. She hadn't discussed the plan extensively with her organization yet, but speaking on her own behalf, Mjellem said she "probably would be open to a pilot" of the parking plan.

Several other merchant associations were similarly wary but not doggedly opposed, leaving the MTA with a crucial window of time to make its case. Stephen Adams, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro, said his group is opposed to any meter enforcement extensions, but could probably live with the longer hours on weeknights. On Sundays, he said, parking isn't a big problem.

Indeed, many merchants said they don't think parking availability is a big issue on evenings and Sundays. The survey results in the MTA's study suggest otherwise, however, as occupancy rates indicated that customers in many districts are struggling to find spaces more than ever when the meters shut down. That may seem like common sense, of course, to anyone who's ever tried to find a parking spot near Clement Street after 6 p.m. or on a Sunday morning for dim sum.

One strategy for winning over businesses might be to do what parking guru Donald Shoup suggests: funnel parking revenue back to the neighborhoods it comes from. Even if a small portion were allocated to maintaining and improving local business district streetscapes, the perception of the plan as a revenue grab by the MTA could change drastically.

"What they should do is give 10 percent of the profits from doing that back to the CDBs, since we're doing the services that the city should be doing," said Debra Niemann, community representative for the Noe Valley Association CBD. "The least you could do is give some of it back." While Niemann is generally opposed to extending parking hours, she said such a change would cause her to drop her opposition.

Asked by Streetsblog about directing some funds to CBDs, or even pairing Muni service improvements to areas where meter hours would be extended, MTA executive director Nat Ford didn't rule out the possibility, but said it's beyond the scope of the study.

"I don't know if we're prepared to answer that at this juncture," said Ford. "The way we've always looked at this whole process is to not make it a neighborhood or political discussion in terms of this study. This study really just looks at the clear data in terms of occupancy, on availability for parking, and the business activity based on hours. It really didn't look at certain areas and whether those investments would go back into those particular areas. That's pretty far down the line in terms of this discussion."

Photo: Bryan Goebel

MTA Chief Nat Ford, at a reporters' round table today, released the long-anticipated parking study conducted by his agency to measure the traffic impacts of increasing parking meter hours on weekday evenings and on Sundays [Summary PDF] [Full Study PDF].

The study recommends that the agency extend parking meter hours in specific commercial districts on Sundays and until as late as midnight in some districts on weekdays when parking occupancy is over 85 percent or businesses are open. This would be done on targeted commercial corridors and would not be a blanket application across all of the more than 25,000 metered spaces the MTA manages.

"We've moved away from a blunt instrument to something that is much sharper and based in data that is pretty straight forward," said Ford, referring to a previous proposal to extend meter hours to 8 pm citywide.

MTA CFO Sonali Bose explained the details of the study, which compiled numerous customer intercept surveys, business interviews, and massive data gathering at meters across the city. Bose said that San Francisco parking policies haven't been significantly updated for decades and many of the meter hours are based on a time when fewer businesses in the city were open late on weeknights or on Sundays.

One of the more interesting findings in the study was that the vast majority of people don't drive to shop. Intercept surveys found data consistent with previous San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) studies that roughly three quarters of shoppers walk, take transit, or ride a bike to do their shopping. Further, for businesses that are worried increasing meter rates would drive away customers, the study notes that increased turnover is good for business. For instance, extending parking meter hours would allow 12 cars to park in one space, instead of seven, a 71 percent increase in potential customers.

When and how the study's proposals will be implemented is not certain. In response to a question about the timeline for rolling the study out, Ford said there was none.

"Right now, the only timeline we can truly bank on is October 20th, presenting this at the MTA Board," said Ford. "Based on what we get back, both formally and informally in terms of support or opposition, then we'll start building a schedule in terms of implementation. Or maybe this is a discussion and implementation is something that is discussed more earnestly in terms of next year's budget."

Although Ford and Bose tried to explain the MTA's parking study is different from the situation in Oakland because it is based on hard data and good parking policy, and because increased revenue would support transit, Oakland parallels were ubiquitous.

"I hope that the MTA leadership has taken heed of what happened in Oakland and will think twice about extending meter hours in this recessionary time," said Ken Cleaveland, spokesperson for the Building Owners and Management Association (BOMA). "Let's delay that conversation for a later date."

MTA Board Chairman Tom Nolan countered that Oakland and San Francisco should not be equated. "I think everyone is taken aback by the strong and effective rebellion in Oakland. But this is a transit-first city,"  said Nolan, who reiterated the dire financial situation the MTA faces with the budget deficit, which he estimated at $30 million.

When pressed whether the MTA Board would stand up to Mayor Gavin Newsom if it believed extending meter hours was better for the MTA and the city, Nolan admitted the board hadn't opposed the mayor "really in much of anything." But, he added, "We keep turning down revenue options, if it's not going to be on the revenue side, it's going to be on the service side."

Supervisor John Avalos was concerned that Mayor Newsom was more concerned with bad publicity than with balancing the MTA budget. "
I believe the mayor's office is not thinking about what's best for the city and trying to ward off possible outcry that could result from people opposed to the changes."

He added, "I think [the MTA] came forward with this despite the pressure because they have a huge hole to fill. They have a growing budget deficit that they need to move on. To not do that would be irresponsible."

Vowing to push the MTA to action if the Mayor and Board President David Chiu did not, Avalos said, "I will do what I did last May, trying to push for the MTA to be funded by different funding streams, including reducing subsidies for drivers."

Parking Study in Detail

Click to enlarge. Download PDF here.

• 3rd Street in Bayview would add Sundays, but evening hours would end at 6 pm, as they do currently
• Parts of the Financial district and parts of Mission Street in the Excelsior, West Portal, Taraval, Irving, Balboa, and parts of Geary and Clement in the Inner Richmond would add Sundays, with evening hours until 6 pm Monday through Thursday and 9 pm Friday and Saturday
• Most of SoMa, Hayes Valley, Civic Center, Parts of Chinatown, Union Street, and parts of Geary and Clement in the Outer Richmond would add Sundays, with evening hours until 9 pm Monday through Thursday and midnight Friday and Saturday
• Inner Mission and Valencia Streets, Upper Market Street, parts of Castro, Inner Geary, parts of Chinatown, Columbus Avenue, and parts of Fisherman's Wharf not operated by the Port would add Sundays, with evening hours until midnight Monday through Saturday
  

The MTA proposal also suggests changing other parking policies to complement the increased meter hours, including:

• Provide four-hour time limits after 6 pm and on Sundays
• Provide option for residents to extend Residential Parking Permit enforcement hours to match or exceed meter hours
• Improve availability of MTA parking cards
• Reduce meter rates at MTA parking lots when and where occupancy does not exceed 60 percent
• Ensure that all metered commercial areas have tow-hour time limits.
  

The expected impacts and benefits from the proposal include:

• Muni customers: Muni will be faster and more reliable because of fewer unpredictable delays
• Drivers: Will have an easier time finding parking spaces and can park for four hours
• Businesses: Improved access to stores should support economic vitality; customers can park for four hours
• Residents: No net loss of parking spaces; residential parking demand will be focused in residential areas
• Environment/Safety: Less unnecessary circling will improve safety for all road users, save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  

A study on the parking management and revenue implications of expanded meter enforcement, which Ford promised within 90 days, was initiated as part of a "compromise" in late May to prevent the Board of Supervisors from rejecting the MTA's 2009-10 budget. It has now been more than 120 days and the study has not been made public, although Streetsblog has spoken to sources who have seen a summary of the draft.

"The Mayor thinks it's the wrong time to make these moves," said Nathan Ballard, Newsom's communications director. "Right now, with the economy where it is, the burden on ordinary people for city services is already stretched to the max, and so he hasn't seen anything that convinces him otherwise. He's open to arguments, but he's still where he was."

Ballard said the study "is nearing completion" and would eventually be made available to the public. Judson True, the MTA spokesperson, said the agency is working to finalize it. "[It] will be a thorough effort based on sound parking-management ideas and extensive stakeholder outreach. We hope that it will elevate some of the recent discussions on parking."

The delay, however, is troubling, considering the pledge made to the Board of Supervisors, particularly BOS Prez David Chiu, who rescinded his motion to reject the MTA budget after receiving assurances from the Mayor the study would be forthcoming.

In an interview, Chiu pointed out, as he did during the budget crisis, that working class families and Muni riders were forced to bear four times the burden of what drivers were asked, in the way of fare increases and service cuts.

"Everyone agreed that a parking study would be done to figure out the fairest way to have car owners carry their fair share," said Chiu. "Given that it is highly likely there will be a more significant mid-year budget deficit, we need to consider all options before we consider service cuts to Muni and other public transit options."

After that exhaustive supervisors meeting May 27, Ford was asked by Streetsblog how he could promise serious consideration of extended meters given Newsom's adamant opposition. His response?

"I think that's premature at this point to assume that. I think, if we have a reasonable plan that takes into account all the impacts, I have found with the Mayor, as well as the Board of Supervisors, that they've been supportive of some of those suggestions we've made and in this case we need a little bit of time."

According to our sources who've seen the summary, the study affirms that extending meter hours is good parking management that will improve driver convenience and create turnover for businesses. The agency is said to have compared more than twenty commercial streets on Wednesday and Friday nights, and Sunday during the day, and apparently found that commercial districts across the city are seeing occupancy rates near 100 percent not long after meters are turned off. Streetsblog has been informed that the study found the problem is especially acute on Sundays, when commercial streets in the study areas see near total occupancy while the majority of the businesses on those streets on average are still open.

Cities all across the country leave their meters on much later than 6 p.m., regardless of the current state of the economy. Take Los Angeles: Santa Monica, Old Pasadena, and West Hollywood leave meters on until 2 a.m. New York City, Milwaukee, and Miami Beach, run meters until midnight. Denver, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC, run meters until 10 p.m. How is San Francisco going to be the most innovative parking demand-management city and implement SFpark if it can't even get the nerve to keep meters on as long as Bethesda, Maryland (10 p.m.) or Park City, Utah (8 p.m.)?

In a city with a stated Transit First policy and an MTA with the power to apply parking revenue directly to transit operations, there is no excuse to throw good money down the drain. According to our sources who have seen the MTA study's summary, increasing parking meter hours in targeted commercial districts would generate a significant amount of money for an agency that desperately needs any source of revenue it has available for transit operations.

Not only would killing the proposals amount to bad parking management, it wouldn't be responsive to the public's stated priorities. According to surveys from the recently finished SFCTA On-Street Parking Management and Pricing Study, respondents ranked price of parking spaces behind parking availability, flexibility, proximity and safety. While the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has not been supportive of extending meters on weekdays, they would like the city to extend meter hours on Sundays. The Port recently extended meter hours until 11 p.m. and there is no indication businesses are hurting.

If the Mayor is nervous about a fallout similar to what has happened in parts of Oakland around parking meter times and fee increases, he should take the lead on the issue by brandishing a study based on substantial data and make the argument that increasing meter hours will free up parking spaces in commercial districts to improve business. What's more, unlike Oakland, the MTA would not lump the increased parking meter revenue into a general fund as a budget stop-gap, but would use the money to improve transit.

Mayor Newsom should embrace the MTA's study, let Ford and the MTA Board implement extended metering and help the agency find additional new sources of revenue instead of trying to quash some of the most important, sensible options on the table.