Parking

If the MTA Board approves budget solutions being presented by staff on Friday, the price of a youth monthly Fast Pass will go up to $30, regardless of family income. But members of San Francisco's Youth Commission say there are better ways to close the MTA's $16.9 million end-of-year budget gap.

Surface parking stretches halfway to the horizon in the heart of downtown Wichita, Kansas. Image: Wichita Walkshop via Flickr. If you haven’t checked out the ITDP parking report we covered yesterday, it’s a highly readable piece of research, walking you through parking policy’s checkered past and potentially brighter future. In addition to describing six cases … Continued

The Board of Supervisors has delayed a vote on legislation that would limit new garages in Chinatown, North Beach and Telegraph Hill for two weeks.

The high-water mark for American parking policy came in the early 1970s, when cities including New York, Boston, and Portland set limits on off-street parking in their downtowns. They were compelled to do so by lawsuits brought under the Clean Air Act, which used the lever of parking policy to curb traffic and reduce pollution from auto emissions. This level of innovation went unmatched over the ensuing three-and-a-half decades. Only now are American cities implementing effective new parking strategies that cut down on traffic.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty says he is still considering how he will vote tomorrow on legislation that would limit new garages in existing buildings in Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill and eliminate minimum parking requirements in those neighborhoods. Advocates are urging him to support the measure, but Dufty said he's still deliberating as he continues to receive waves of feedback from supporters and opponents of the plan.

"There's nowhere to park." That's what a lot of drivers think, even when there is parking available very nearby — say, on the upper level of a parking garage. This disjunct between perception and reality, which can lead to municipalities overbuilding parking facilities that end up standing empty, is the topic of an intriguing post today from Tom Vanderbilt, on How We Drive.

When San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced legislation last October to limit new garages in existing buildings in District 3, which includes North Beach, Telegraph Hill, and Chinatown, his action catalyzed several advocacy groups that don't always see eye to eye. The bill is aimed at stopping no-fault evictions where building owners turn rental units into more valuable for-sale units and has united the community group Telegraph Hill Dwellers with transportation advocates Livable City and the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), who are concerned about tenant rights and affordable housing, particularly in Chinatown.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is on her way out of office, thanks to a deal with prosecutors pursuing a corruption case against her, but she's leaving something positive in place for local transit riders.

Some San Francisco drivers have turned over a new leaf on 19th Avenue in the Sunset, where they have adopted the habit of parking on the street, in stark contrast to the previous widespread practice of parking partially or entirely on the sidewalk.