SF Will Never Build the Ed Lee Parking Meter Monument

Ed Lee isn’t the first San Francisco mayor to go to bat for free parking. But maybe he’ll be the first to realize that this is no way to leave a lasting legacy — the city will never build a monument to his crusade against parking meters.

The beautiful renderings in this post, depicting a Mayor Lee statue on top of a giant parking meter where the Alma Spreckels’ monument now stands in the middle of Union Square, were created by Streetsblog founder Aaron Naparstek and visualization wizard Carly Clark.

The idea came to Naparstek as he delved into the current state of sustainable transportation policy in San Francisco, preparing for his keynote speech at the SF Bicycle Coalition’s Golden Wheel Awards earlier this month. After watching New York implement breakthrough after breakthrough under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Naparstek concluded that Mayor Lee’s lack of leadership is one of SF’s great obstacles to creating reliable transit, safe bikeways, safer streets for walking, and attractive places to gather.

By the time he left office, Bloomberg could point to bold measures like the pedestrianization of Times Square and the multi-modal redesign of First and Second Avenues in Manhattan. Ed Lee, meanwhile, can say that he kept parking free on Sundays and threatened elected officials who tried to increase funding for transit and safer streets.

“No 21st century big-city mayor will ever be honored or memorialized for being the guy who preserved cheap, abundant, on-street parking,” said Naparstek. “There is no mayoral legacy to be had.”