Parking

Update 12/19: DPW now has an online survey you can take about removing parking on the Marina path.

The anger of the protestors who blockaded a Google bus in the Mission on Monday was very real and understandable. San Francisco residents, living in a highly sought-after city with a limited housing supply, are coping with a crisis of skyrocketing rents and evictions. Meanwhile, Muni riders increasingly find their stops blocked by private shuttles that appear to be whisking away the very Peninsula tech workers blamed for driving up rents.

In a setback for progressive parking policy in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors voted last week to eliminate the SFMTA’s ability to install any significant amount of new parking meters under a new five-year contract to upgrade existing meters.

As the vote on the Polk Street redesign approaches in the coming months, the SFMTA Board of Directors last week requested that planners present the board with a pilot project option for bolder bike safety improvements along the length of the project area. Currently, the SFMTA's preferred option calls only for sharrows and rush-hour parking bans on the northbound segment of the street where merchant opposition is strongest. The southbound side of that stretch would get a conventional, unprotected bike lane.

Think the inside of a transit station is a completely inappropriate place to store automobiles? BART begs to differ.

The bike lane we spotted at Fort Mason last week, which replaced a lane of car parking on the northern end of Van Ness Avenue, could be removed any day now, according to city staffers. The bike lane was installed temporarily as part of the People Plan, intended to encourage visitors to bicycle during the America's Cup yacht races -- but only on a trial basis.

A new contra-flow bike lane separated by paint and plastic posts has appeared at the northern end of Van Ness Avenue, providing a safer link between the ped/bike paths that run through Fort Mason and Fisherman's Wharf.

Looking to end the dysfunction caused by California's failed policy of giving free parking to disabled placard holders, the SFMTA Board of Directors unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday giving agency staff the green light to pursue state legislation that would allow local jurisdictions to charge placard holders at meters.

Supervisor Mark Farrell is apparently so repulsed by the idea that people should pay for the parking spots they use, he's lashing out in increasingly irrational ways.