SFMTA

The SFMTA web page that provides guidance on "how to park legally" currently tells drivers that "you may park in your own driveway as long as no portion of your vehicle extends over the sidewalk." The text is accompanied by a photo of someone walking a bike past cars parked in "driveways," but with their rear ends extending well into what appears to be the sidewalk.

The more than 1,800 people who use the buffered, curbside bike lane on Fell Street every weekday continue to be faced with a familiar hazard: parked trucks.

Mayor Ed Lee has an opportunity to champion one of the smartest proposals to come out under his administration: A ballot measure to restore SF's vehicle license fee to its longtime level of 2 percent. The measure would raise crucially needed revenue that would boost transit and make San Francisco's streets safer.

Clarification: California's coastline (840 miles) is shorter than the end-to-end length of SF's on-street parking spaces alone (900 miles). This post originally compared it to the length of SF's total public parking supply (1,451 miles long), which is actually longer than the United States' west coast from Mexico to Canada (1,360 miles).

The "crookedest street in the world" block of Lombard Street is a world-famous tourist attraction, but the resulting car traffic causes congestion and safety problems and may lead the SFMTA to ban tourists from driving that stretch.

A Muni train car re-configured with fewer seats and more standing room was put into Metro service this week. According to the SFMTA, 14 "double-wide" seats were replaced with "single-wide" seats, adding a net capacity gain of "at least ten" riders to the car, which is a pilot project to squeeze more capacity onto Muni's trains.

Updated 4:16 p.m. with comment from Supervisor John Avalos.

About 50 on-street car-share parking spaces could be approved at an SFMTA engineering hearing tomorrow. That's your chance to write in, or show up at City Hall, to support a smart move by the SFMTA: placing car-share vehicles in convenient locations citywide, and putting everyone within easy reach of this alternative to car ownership.

The SFMTA has recently re-timed traffic signals to give green waves for bicycle riders on three street segments: North Point from Stockton to Polk Streets, Folsom from 15th to 24th Streets, and Fulton from Laguna to Steiner Streets.