Now that the people of "Restore Car Dominated Balance" have
Proposition L on the ballot, they're looking for support from the people they are trying to marginalize. Paul Aster, backer of Prop L said, "when we looked at the demographics we realized that the amount of people who solely drive isn't large enough to pass this through. We need to connect to the other half of the city that doesn't drive a personal vehicle. We want to relate to them and show that our wants and needs really aren't all that different."
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| "See, our concerns are not all that different" |
Proposition L supporters want to make sure citizens understand how difficult it can be to sit in a vehicle and drive from point A to B in the least amount of time possible. "We want to make sure someone in a bus realized that we're only parked in their bus stop because of bad city policy, somehow. We want pedestrians to think twice when the crosswalk is blocked or we blew through a red light. Maybe it was due to a newly added bike lane, or some pedestrian safety initiative? It certainly wasn't OUR fault." Prop L supporters want everyone to put themselves in the
lead shoes of drivers and contemplate the sheer horror of being unable to find a super convenient free parking space out of the
441,541 spaces available in SF.
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| Save these "Car Buffets" (Van Ness - Left, Masonic - Right) are perfect examples of balanced street-freeways |
Proposition L supporters also want to highlight some of San Francisco's wonderful "Car Buffets" that work amazingly well for drivers who can't handle excruciatingly slow speeds of 25 miles an hour. Paul said, "These 'Car Buffets' are perfectly safe when pedestrians are in constant fear of bodily injury." And while it's pretty clear that speeding
doesn't save much time at all, Paul says that doesn't mean drivers shouldn't feel the satisfaction of getting somewhere faster. "Some people feel the satisfaction of cycling to and from work, or carrying a load of groceries home from the store. Drivers only feel this satisfaction when they're ripping through a neighborhood to get home just in time before The Big Bang Theory starts."
Paul concluded, "Once public transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians see that we're just another sharp, wildly spinning cog in the SF transportation machine, they'll be more receptive to this car dominated balance proposition."
oh those poor motorists and their plight
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with any of these???
ReplyDeleteprohibit the city from:[1]
charging parking meter fees on Sundays;
charging parking meter fees on holidays;
charging parking meter fees outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.;
putting new meters in neighborhoods without consent from the affected residents and businesses; and
increasing parking garage, meter or ticket rates for at least five years, with increases tied to the CPI after that.
Aren't you the same people bitching that there's not enough parking and the streets are too congested? You seem to want the best of both worlds with no room for sensible solutions, like having less cars jamming up the streets, and have people actually pay for parking. It actually helped on Sundays but apparently the thought of shilling out a few bucks so people don't circle around for parking was just too much.
DeleteOne argument the Prop L supporters have made in an effort to persuade everyone is this: when drivers circle a neighborhood for 20 minutes in search of parking, they not only pollute the environment more, they also create more traffic. Which is bad for everyone, including people on public transit. Hence the need for more parking garages.
ReplyDeleteTransit advocates might reply, "Take the damn bus and you won't be circling for parking." But if you live in say, Bernal Heights, and you're meeting a friend for dinner on a Saturday night in the Richmond, riding the Muni will take you well over two hours round trip. Driving, in contrast, would take 40 minutes round trip.
So are you saying you're all for improving Muni? Creating dedicated lanes for busses, rapid transit? Making the city more bike accessible where it's faster to ride a bike than it is to take muni? Better accessibility to a taxi and car share services?
DeleteI don't understand how you think creating more parking for cars will somehow fix the problem and create less gridlock. We need a little flexibility and creativity when it comes to city life and making everything more accommodating to a car isn't going to solve it.
Tim, you've been all over the bloggernets lately. I think it's time for you to take a break and think about the concept of 'induced demand.'
DeleteWe built a whole crapload of garages and put parking all over our streets decades ago. Lots of old-timers say it was 'easy' back then to drive and park places. So what happened? Everyone decided they should drive everywhere and bought cars. Oh, and our population increased.
Well, guess what, we're out of room and we're not going to build more garages when housing is too damn expensive. So instead of blaming the city's inability to meet parking demand when you schlep across town to meet a friend in the Richmond, thank all your fellow citizens for being sheep and buying cars. And take Uber or Lyft next time if you can't ride a bike. mmmkay?
...or people will get sick of circling and find a different way or meet in the middle or do anything other than insist on driving everywhere, all the time.
DeleteHi Anonymous, thanks for noticing my comments. I'd be curious to know the frequency of your own online commenting, but you're, well, anonymous.
DeleteIn reply to you and James, we absolutely need better transit in San Francisco. I skip out on driving as often as I can, and would do so even more if the transit system here weren't so God awful. The whole "Transit First" mantra sounds admirable in theory, but is a farce in execution.