Parking

On a recent Tuesday morning, at Folsom and 25th streets in The Mission, I watched one of the more bizarre street-cleaning rituals I've ever seen in any city. I know San Francisco drivers get a free parking pass in front of numerous churches on Sundays (just check out Valencia Street), but I had never seen car owners squat on the sidewalk for street cleaning.

The Municipal Transportation Agency's federally-funded parking experiment, SFPark, is shaping up to be the most powerful tool remaining in the city's traffic-busting toolbox considering the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's criticism of congestion pricing and Mayor Newsom's recent tempered support for the plan.

San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency gave the go-ahead Tuesday to curbside parking reform that will encompass a quarter of the metered spaces in the city -- about 6,000 spots. Under the 18-month pilot, called SFpark, the agency will vary prices for on-street parking and city-owned lots based on demand, intending to reduce unnecessary car trips and cut down on cruising for spaces.

San Francisco is lunging out of the parking dark ages. Backed by the mayor and city council, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is launching "SFpark," a comprehensive, curbside parking reform project encompassing ten city neighborhoods.

I was pretty sure that New York City had San Francisco beat for this year's Park(ing) Day, what, with the children's reading hour and the on-street gymnasium in Brooklyn; Staten Island and Queens getting in on the act; and German tourists frolicking on the sod in front of the MoMA (all captured by StreetFilms, of course). Then I saw photos of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome admiring Rebar Group's Parkcycle -- literally, a pedal-powered park on wheels -- and I realized that we had been foiled again. Back to the drawing board New York City Park(ing) fans. We've got 12 months to come up with something better than this...

Park(ing) in Park Slope, Brooklyn, May 6, 2006. The sign says, "Public space reclamation in progress."

Depressed about the direction Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan is heading? Cheer yourself up by starting to plan for Park(ing) Day 2007. Friday, September 21 is the day when urban dwellers the world over pop quarters into parking meters and take over on-street spaces, temporarily transforming them into miniature parks, playgrounds, cafés and community spaces.

The Wall Street Journal ran a piece this weekend by Conor Dougherty on the municipal move toward charging more for parking. It's available online to paid subscribers only, but here's a taste:

Park(ing) Day San FranciscoA Clarence Eckerson StreetfilmRunning time: 6:51 - 22.05 MB, QuickTime