The War on Cars Continues, With, Err... Cars

The SFMTA is at it again with their assault on cars, this time with, er, cars!  The plan is to utilize a whopping 0.002% (900) of the total of public parking on car sharing in San Francisco.  It's pure madness!  These precious spaces shouldn't be devoted to vehicles that are accessible to everyone, and where cars can be utilized throughout the day at a rate of 95%.  Every car owner knows that parking spots are supposed to be free to people that actually OWN cars and reserved for people to store 90% of the time.

Kiss your freedom goodbye, suckers.
image found here.

Studies suggest that car share actually helps ease parking congestion, because people are more likely to ditch their car if they have more access to them.  Other studies estimate between 9 and 32 people ditch their cars when car sharing options are available in their neighborhood. These parking spots also bring in anywhere from $50 to $225 a month to the city.  While this so called "evidence" suggests a lot of benefits, the Internet had a lot of poignant and rage filled comments on this car sharing pilot.

• BBhater: "Give away the bus stops and now parking?? What is SFMTA doing?"

• WhyMeWorry: "OK, City of SF, why not just track down all the privately owned motor vehicles and put us in jail."

• Enders_of_sf: "The war against the individual continues."

• SF_local: "What a rip. San Francisco forcing people to bend to their will. So goes freedom."

• Orange Moose: "great. that much harder to find a spot. thanks!"

• Rkeezy: "Stay out of my neighborhood! You're not as wanted as you think you are."  

First Car Share invades your neighborhood, then they take away your freedom, and then it's just a matter of time until car owners wind up in jail.
Image found here.

The SFMTA pilot program thinks this is a win for everyone; from people who don't have cars and would like access to them, car owners on the verge of getting rid of theirs, and also for people who want a better chance to store their personal car on the streets.

Based on these insightful comments above, the pilot is just another war on cars.  It's going to be even harder to find a spot when more people stop owning cars, 'individual freedoms' will be lost, and private car owners will wind up in jail, somehow.  The common sense individuals of San Francisco need to stand up and defend their free 2-3 car storage rights.  Parking spots should be publicly accessible, but not actual cars.  We finally need to end this war on cars, even with, umm... cars, once and for all!

Motorists Coalition Restoring Car Dominated Transportation Balance to San Francisco - Finally!

If you look around San Francisco, you'll undoubtedly see every street moving car traffic, and cars parked on every street.  What you didn't know is that it's severely out of balance with nine slightly dedicated bus lanes, and six dedicated bike lanes strewn about the city.  Well a ragtag group of motorists are about to change the landscape of San Francisco to balanced levels not seen since - five years ago.  

A Transit only lane? Unbalanced!!!
Geary at Powell Street. Photo: Cheryl Brinkman

The "Motorist Coalition" believes that balanced transportation policies would better serve San Francisco motorists, pedestrians, motorists, first responders, motorists, motorists, taxi riders, Muni riders, motorists and bicyclists, motorists, and it also addresses the unique needs of the senior motorists, children motorists, families with motorists, and motorists.  Hopefully they can be more powerful than the enraged car lovers that managed to severely alter or halt plans on Geary BRT, Van Ness BRT, Market Street, Irving Street, and Polk Street.  

A bike lane wedged between car traffic and dooring zones? Unbalanced!
Image found here.  

Their aim is to restore balance to the City’s transit policy and adopt a 'WWCD?' ideology (What Would Car's Do?) .  All traffic laws should be equally enforced, from the distracted pedestrian walking outside of a magical crosswalk, a cyclist taking an Idaho roll, or an SUV speeding and going through red lights.   Variable meter pricing should not be imposed on neighborhoods unilaterally, because unlike everything else in San Francisco, parking should be free. In short, motorists should not bear the brunt of the SFMTA’s unreasonable regulations and mandates that make parking market based, manageable and effective. 

Unbalanced! It should be 110% capacity and FREE!
Image found here. 

The Motorhead group also believes that despite the benefits of boosting business by making it easier for drivers to park in commercial districts, to reduce circling time and congestion by improving spot availability, and to subsidize operational costs for the Muni transit service, it was severely unbalanced because it only helped out everyone.

Most of the balance will come from their charter:

1. Parking (not transit) is and should always be super cheap, free, and also available to everyone, somehow.  Parking meters should not operate on any City and County holiday listed on sfgov.org, on Sundays, or outside the hours of 9:00 am to 6:00 p.m. Commencing July 1, 2015, fees for parking garages, meters, parking tickets, and neighborhood parking permits should be frozen for five years, allowing the City to annually adjust thereafter only for Consumer Price Index (CPI) increases.

Balanced
Image found here. 

2. Only put meters in places where merchants and household want them, like we do with stop signs, stop lights, and speed limits.  The introduction of parking meters or variable meter pricing into neighborhoods where they currently do not exist should be allowed only upon petition by the majority of the affected households and merchants.

3. Construct neighborhood parking garages in magical space located in all neighborhoods that will be underutilized and far below the market price of anything else that exists in SF.  A portion of any additional parking or motorists' fees and new bond monies earmarked for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) should go to the construction and operation of neighborhood parking garages.

4. Ensure the roads are safe for everyone, but also make it easy for cars to swiftly move through streets free from the distraction of bikers and pedestrians.  Any proposed re-engineering of traffic flows in the City should aim to achieve safer, smoother-flowing streets.

Fair and Balanced
Image found here. 

5. Enforce traffic laws the same way we treat all laws in San Francisco - manslaughter, littering , vandalism, drug dealing, public nudity. It's all the same!  Traffic laws should be enforced equally for everyone using San Francisco’s streets and sidewalks.

6. Regular Muni riders, pedestrians, and cyclists, are not people who ever drive cars.  There should be people on the SFMTA board who exclusively drive a car so there's a more balanced perspective.  The seven-member SFMTA Board should include not only four regular riders of Muni, but a fair representation of all transportation stakeholders, including motorists. The SFMTA should create a Motorists’ Citizens Advisory Committee in addition to its other advisory committees.

Hopefully with the help of the motorist coalition, we can 

achieve this kind of balance in San Francisco again!

7. Apply a WWCD policy to everything that happens on San Francisco streets.   The Board of Supervisors shall make every reasonable effort to implement the components of this policy through appropriate legislative and administrative acts, including but not limited to acts relating to enacting, repealing, reconciling, amending, and/or ameliorating the components of this policy with other existing laws, regulations, blah blah blah blah blah cars blah.

Hopefully the Motorist Coalition can put a little sense and clarity into San Francisco Street Design, where motorists can have more of most of everything, and free of charge, as god intended.  

Looking to Bike or Walk to the Devil's Slide Trail? Here's an Easy Way!

What a beautiful path, that should be open to cars, not dirty bike hippies.
Photo found here.  

The new Devil's Slide trail looks amazing (sans the bike paths), but you're going to have a difficult time getting there with just your stupid bike.  There's also a serious parking shortage once you drive there, courtesy of bike-nuts, probably (they could easily add 1.3 miles of slanted car parking instead of the bike path).  Here are a few easy tips to help you get there!

Step 1: Put your bike back in the garage.  It's not easy to get to the Devil's Slide by bike, so just hold up.

Do you really want to bike through this?
Image found here.

Step 2: Go to the nearest car dealership.  Look for a good model to buy and let someone side hug you while you do it.

"I just can't wait to drive out to walk and bike!"
Image found here.  

Step 3: Now that you have a car, why go for a bike ride?  You can now participate in the glory of drive-through fast food and going to far away malls!  If you need money for gas you might as well sell that silly old bike.  You won't need it anymore.

Doesn't this look more fun anyway?
Image found here.