We should really title this, "SF DPT Invents New Way To Rob Citizenry." Most people have this idealized cable car, Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Chocolate vision of San Francisco. But as Ice T would say, shit ain't like that! Imagine coming home from work and there is nowhere to park. I don't mean that you had to park three-blocks away and lug your groceries up a hill. I mean there actually isn't a parking spot because you made the boneheaded mistake of getting caught on the Dumbarton Bridge for two hours and now it is after 7:30 pm and literally, there aren't any parking spaces. So, like 25% of the other cars, you park on the sidewalk. No, really. What else are you going to do, leave your car in the street? When I lived in the Western Addition 10 years ago, it cost me an average of $250 per month in tickets just to park. San Francisco, which has less than 725,000 residents, collects over $30 million per year in parking revenue. And now the Satanic good people of the DPT have finally figured out a way to make even more.
Yup, market rates for parking spaces. To quote, "In the idea's simplest application, people would have to pay more to park where demand for spaces is high." Translated another way, "Screw egalitarianism." It also means that the clown in the leased BMW who helped shut down that crusty punk club you liked because the noise bothered him in his SOMA loft and who also stipulated in his 6-figure project management contract that he get two weeks off for Burning Man (no, really — people do this), will happily pay for all the decent spots while you get stuck effectively without anywhere to park and/or at the tow yard. Of course, SF has a long and storied history of flipping the bird at the little people. Why stop now? I mean, who knows when city hall will need another billion dollar restoration? If the City really wants to make up the lost revenue it thinks it's owed, don't price out the poor. Simply do what I've been advocating for years: pay-per-view executions of meter maids. [sfgate.com]