Parking

Prop L was slammed by the SF Democratic County Central Committee last night, via an almost-unanimous vote against endorsing the measure to "restore transportation balance" for motorists. The DCCC's endorsements hold a lot of sway, and its resounding "no" vote on the measure was a key litmus test to see whether the Republican-backed measure would garner any sympathy from SF's political establishment.

Chris Bowman, a Republican proponent of the Prop L "Restore Transportation Balance" ballot measure, aimed false accusations at the SF Bicycle Coalition and pro-bike SFMTA officials in a panel discussion this week.

The backers of Prop L think San Francisco can "restore balance" to its transportation system by, for example, building more parking garages.

A campaign has been launched opposing the cars-first ballot measure that claims to "restore transportation balance," which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition L. Prop L was crafted by the SF Republican Party, and is bankrolled by $49,000 from Sean Parker, a tech billionaire and Mayor Ed Lee supporter.

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.

Haystack, the latest app allowing drivers to sell access to a parking space, blazed across the Internet this month after Boston Mayor Martin Walsh threatened to ban it. Valleywag called it a "scourge." The Awl compared it to profiteering off access to clean water. The haters have it wrong though: The apps aren't screwing over the public -- local governments are.

When it comes to effectively enforcing parking regulations to make San Francisco's streets work more efficiently, SF hasn't changed much since 1988.

In a trailblazing move that advances sustainable transportation policy in San Francisco, Supervisor Mark Farrell successfully changed an outdated and mostly unknown law that prohibited San Franciscans from using their residential garages to store anything besides automobiles.

The SFMTA's endeavor to reserve on-street car parking spaces for car-share vehicles has yielded complaints from some car owners who, ironically, decry the "privatization" of space currently used to store private cars.