I expected conservative business owners to speak out at yesterday’s MTA Board meeting against expanded parking meter hours. What I didn’t expect was for the left-wing group International ANSWER to rail against parking meters as an “assault” on the proletariat, although we never saw them protest when Muni raised bus fares for people who can’t afford cars. As Marc Caswell of the Bike Coalition described it, “ANSWER – fighting oil wars abroad, while fighting for free parking at home.” The MTA has completed a 37-page study of expanding parking meter hours later in the evening and on Sundays, the most exhaustive analysis done since the City installed its first parking meters in 1947. With the MTA faced with the choices of more revenue or more Muni service cuts, we can identify a net of $6 million in revenue – without a blanket “one-size-fits-all” approach to the whole city. Will the Board use the study as a framework for an equitable solution, or will they bend to the political pressure of angry motorists?
“San Francisco parking policies have not changed since we implemented parking meters decades ago,” said Muni Chief Financial Officer Sonali Bose in her presentation to the MTA. Our parking meter hours were set when most businesses closed on Sundays or on weeknights past 6:00 p.m. – so demand for parking at those times was lower. Now, good luck finding a space on Columbus Avenue in North Beach on evenings when there is free parking. “Without parking meters,” said Bose, “people stay parked and do not move.”
Looking at 22 major commercial corridors in the City, the MTA staff analyzed how full on-street parking was on Wednesday evenings, Friday nights and on Sundays. They also looked in each area what percentage of businesses were open on Sundays and evenings. Only in places and at times where (a) more than 25% of businesses were open and (b) occupancy levels are above 85% would the staff recommend expanding parking meters.
From a practical standpoint, this would mean places like SOMA, Chinatown, Polk Gulch and the Tenderloin would extend weeknight meters until 9:00 p.m. – while North Beach, the Mission, Castro and Union Square would have them until midnight. Pretty much the whole City would have paid parking meters on Sunday from 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. The MTA Board would review and adjust these hours every two years to assess demand.
UCLA Planning Professor Donald Shoup, who is a leading expert on parking policy, called the study “pathbreaking.” While cities may be apprehensive after Oakland’s recent debacle with parking meters, Shoup said that San Francisco’s proposal is no comparison. “I think they should tailor parking prices very carefully to the time and the place,” he told San Francisco Streetsblog, “and not have a citywide blanket ordinance saying we’re going to raise everything everywhere.”
But the MTA proposal didn’t do much to allay fears of small business owners yesterday, who believe that expanding parking meter hours will drive customers away. Of course, what seemed lost in the discussion was that most of their customers walk, bike or take public transit to their business. For those who must drive to their business, more parking meter hours will stop cars from effectively “squatting” on a prime spot right in front of their store – allowing more customers to drive up to the business, shop and then leave.
Fights at City Hall often come down to “politics vs. policy.” It may be good fiscal policy to cut funding in certain areas, but every budget cut has a constituency that will fight like hell to save it. Likewise, the MTA must balance its budget to run Muni and enact sound planning practices – but no one wants to pay more for parking or public transportation.
In 1999 and then in 2007, San Francisco voters amended the City Charter in an attempt to “de-politicize” the MTA – first taking control of Muni out of the Board of Supervisors, and then giving the MTA Board more power and autonomy. The theory was that transit policy is so intricate, that we need some apolitical professionals to make the decisions.
Despite opposition to expanding parking meters, how the MTA Board handles this will show if it can really value policy decisions above political pressure.
