Cars - Golden Gate Park’s most cherished resource.
Anyone who goes into Golden Gate Park by foot or bike, immediately knows they don’t belong there. Last year a bicyclist even died in the park, and that’s why the SFMTA is ready to protect our most cherished San Franciscans - cars. So the mayor asked the SFMTA to devise a plan that does the bare minimum and keep cars driving and parking everywhere for free. The project’s goals can be found here.
SFMTA makes note of a person dying in Golden Gate Park as a reason why they’re willing to make tepid car-friendly changes to the park.
The SFMTA used index cards to collect all the potential ideas for Golden Gate Park improvements. Ideas included:
Remove free on-street parking
Manage and charge for parking
Install bike lanes on all park streets
Divert all through traffic to the 2 ARTERIAL roads surrounding the park
Limit speed to 15 mph
Triple traffic fines within the park
Once all the ideas were collected, they were thrown into a dumpster and set on fire.
The SFMTA then came up with “solutions” that wouldn’t impact motorists in the slightest, honored suburban style street design, and treated bicyclists and pedestrians like second class citizens.
The SFMTA proposes adding a smattering of paint, some signs, and maybe even a few raised crosswalks and blinking lights in a grand show of safety theater. Fortunately none of the proposed changes will do anything to reduce the amount of people driving and parking for free in the park.
If you want to thank the SFMTA, Mayor Ed Lee and Ed Reiskin for all their hard work keeping cars everywhere in the park, you can thank them by filling out their survey here.
We heard you don’t want cars in the park, but we’re putting cars in the park, because of cars.
The SFMTA is "required" to remove these posts (seen behind the SFMTA's massive truck blocking the bike lane) so they can make room for everyday double parking. image via SFMTrA
There's a major problem on the streets of San Francisco these days and the SFMTA is working diligently to fix it. No, I'm not talking about the countless deaths and injuries that happened on our streets. It's small plastic posts that the rogue group called SFMTrA have installed all over the city.
Illegal median parking on Valencia street that the SFMTA valiantly ignores every week. Image found here
The SFMTA, which recently enshrined free double parking on Sundays despite countless organizations and neighborhoods saying they didn't want it, removed the plastic posts at an unprecedented speed. They responded to this incredibly dangerous activity by saying they are "required" to remove the little posts from the streets. They went on to say, "We also need to make sure that there's plenty of room for the double parking that occurs on Valencia Street on a daily basis. If we don't stop this kind of behavior, what's next, they'll block illegal Sunday median parking on Valencia & Dolores, too?"
SFMTA righting the wrongs of of the SFMTrA so Valencia street is back to its natural state. image found here
The SFMTA is hopeful that they've removed the small posts so they'll be filled with incredibly safe daily double and median parking. A SFMTA representative said, "As a direct arm of our wimpy leaders, we want to ensure voting motorists aren't denied the promise given to them in car commercials."
Flex posts are a menace to the streets of San Francisco. Median parking on the red zones of Dolores Street is ~perfectly safe~ image found here
San Francisco is known as for innovation, and nothing could be more innovative than the SFMTA's latest pilot program which enshrines free Sunday double parking. "We're so excited this is finally happening! After decades of completely disregarding the law, public safety or the movement of traffic, we're getting a double parking pilot!" said one motorist while abandoning his car in the middle of the street.
The SFMTA said it took a lot of hard work to make this happen. "First of all, we had to completely disregard the community process, because they voted it down 4 to 3. It was deeply unpopular with the community, but we came up with some arbitrary need for 5 people to vote it down, not just a simple majority. So we easily cleared that hurdle. The second part was to completely disregard the separation of church and state. I mean we made it legal near churches and on Sunday mornings, but it's totally not for church people or whatever. It's just that easy!"
What the pilot will look like is anyone's guess, since the program hasn't been finalized and it's making something most cities consider an undesirable and dangerous practice a weekly occurrence. "We'll just do what we usually do," said one SFMTA employee, "We'll distinguish between the legal double parking and illegal double parking. People will start respecting the laws surrounding double parking once we have rules in place... even though the reason why we're doing this pilot because is because people broke the law in the first place. We'll also rely heavily on 'enforcement,'" he said with a hearty laugh.
Motorists are hoping the SFMTA will forgo other bike lane, pedestrian and public transit improvement to pilot other previously illegal and dangerous practices. "They could pilot blocking the crosswalk, blasting through red lights, or the time honored tradition of driving over the speed limit," tweeted one motorist while searching for double parking.
The SFMTA has proposed a budget for Fiscal Years 2017 and 2018. The budget has a slew of fare increases for people addicted to public transit, but it also hits them with another penalty for using cash. When asked if they should increase Muni up to $2.50 they enthusiastically said, "Absolutely!" When asked if they should start charging for evening parking, the SFMTA quickly replied, "hold on, we're going to have to 'study' that one..."
Hundreds of transit addicts waiting for their fix. Photo by mayortoby & Muni Diaries
Under scrutiny of some organizations, the SFMTA was asked, "why didn't you just reduce the fare for people who use a card, rather than add a surcharge for people who used cash? Now they'll pay $2.50 for transit. A SFMTA spokesman said, "that could lead to more transit addicts, and we really didn't want to be responsible for that. We have way too many people taking public transit now which leads to all kinds of problems. Pollution, traffic accidents, congestion... you name a city problem and it's undoubtedly tied to public transit use. Plus we have a budget hole to the tune of 8 million dollars, about the same amount we have to pay to give motorists their sorely needed free Sunday parking."
All kinds of increases to help curb the city's transit addiction! Plus it helps offset all the motorist freebies! image found here
The SFMTA also had a slew of motorists perks for to help curb the city of its debilitating transit dependence
Reducing Towing Fees- For motorists who, for some reason outside their control, break parking laws and get their cars towed.
Free Sunday Parking Meters - Mayor Lee, Ed Reiskin & the SFMTA have no intention on rescinding this massive giveaway to anyone who decides to move around the city in a personal speeding combustible metal box.
Free Evening Parking - This was moved to "study" phase. Which means that it will be studied to nauseam, possibly brought into existence, and then quickly killed off ala Sunday parking.
Free Saturday Double Parking - Because Sunday is so popular it's returning to all weekend days!
The Board of Supervisors will consider whether or not they'll pass the SFMTA budget, but given that most of them have curbed or never had a public transit addiction, the SFMTA is confident it will pass.
"If it can help just one person get out of public transit and back into a personal car, we've done our jobs here," said one supervisor (probably Farrel).
The SFMTA also plans to change the city policy to read "Transit-First Policy ;-)" later this year.
Bulbouts and wide sidewalks, probably behind this massive firetruck wedged between parked cars, are the biggest obstacles to public safety. Image: KTVU
A contentious meeting took place in North Beach yesterday as crusty residents and firefighter unions opposed "basic street safety measures" and asserted that that sidewalk bulb-outs are dangerous. To appease Skeksis skeptics, the SFMTA will instead install painted "safety zones" on intersections along Columbus avenue. Construction of concrete versions could begin next year, but undoubtedly won't, due to the screams of car loving opponents.
You would be a stone-cold idiot if you were to try and ignore the thousands of years of experience bestowed to us by the firefighter's union - on-street car storage is 1000% safer than bulb-outs and bike lanes.
At first glance the average person may think that bulb-outs, with their six inch raised curbs, are benign and wouldn't cause any issues to firetrucks moving about the city. Bulb-outs typically replace on-street stored cars and supposedly have been shown to decrease the number of injuries between vehicles and pedestrians. But Zero Vision derived requests like bulb-outs, bike lanes and 12 foot streets are a non-starter for the centuries old quorum of firefighters, which referred back to ancient fire codes created in the suburbs of Texas for guidance.
Ancient firefighter's union halfheartedly listening to the pleas for slimmer streets and bulbouts from pedestrians & bikers Image found here.
The bulb-outs “being proposed for Columbus Avenue are not that scary,” said D3 Supervisor Julie Christensen, who got the SFMTA to install trial painted lanes to pacify the squawking SFFD Union & car loving neighborhood associations. The San Francisco Firefighter's union still reserves the right to redesign any pedestrian and bike "friendly" street design. On-street parking & hordes of vehicles on the streets has never been mentioned as problem for the firefighter's union.
Bike lanes like this can seriously delay a firetruck, whereas the left on-street car storage side is a fireman's safety dream come true. image found here.
The Firefighter's Union not only blames bulb-outs, but insist that bike lanes and extended crosswalks hurt response times, so on-street car parking up to the curbs of crosswalks should remain the standard. This sentiment was echoed by North Beach Neighbors President Trish Herman who believes the rising tide of bike lanes and wide sidewalks can clearly impinge upon the ability for firefighters to do their jobs. Not only that, Trish bellowed that removing on-street car storage is not "considering the vehicle public."
North Beach Neighbors President Trish Herman screaming her case against more sidewalk space, and for more on-street car storage for the "vehicle public". image found here
Not everyone shares the views of the firefighters union and other members of the vehicle loving public. Some people like Tony Wessling, a street safety advocate in North Beach said, “It makes no sense to design the city around the fire equipment. It makes better sense to design the fire equipment around the city.” At that point the ancient firefighter's union swarmed around Tony and devoured him, for safety.
Why use small, nimble vehicles like other countries to navigate smaller streets when you can simply maintain archaic street configurations with plenty of on-street car storage? image found here.
Car traffic wouldn't be allowed to go through one half of one street in all of San Francisco? This is absolutely insane! image found here.
The Wiggle, a patchwork of bike sharrows on pavement weaving through fast car traffic & parked cars has been around for quite some time. The only reason why someone on a bike would take this route is because it's geographically convenient, and not because the city makes it any easier to ride through it safely. In an effort to remedy this issue, the SFMTA started the long arduous process of making some changes to the street to accomodate the thousands of people that walk and bike through the area every day.
According to Streetsblog, "A major feature of the planned Wiggle upgrades is a large sidewalk bulb-out which would physically block drivers from entering southbound Scott at Fell Street. That would reduce the car traffic on Scott, which runs one block parallel to Divisadero, that degrades the livability of the neighborhood and congests the intersection at Haight." The other part of the plan would divert traffic on Divisidero Street from taking a left turns onto Haigh Street. After two years of planning, community input, the project was halted because a few merchants who weren't paying attention started screaming at the 11th hour.
Stop a car from doing a car thing? Are you insane? Leave the deterring to pedestrians and cyclists thankyouverymuch. Image found here.
SFMTA's timeline is very similar to other projects that have gone through copeous amounts of community input, engineering and planning, then squelched by a few car loving merchants. The Polk Street bike plan was changed at the 11th hour to accommodate the Mayor's Optometrist's desire for side car storage. The Oak/Fell bike lanes were delayed to add more magical free parking on SF Streets. Removing 57 parking spaces from a pedestrian and bike path in the Marina was also delayed so the Parks & Rec department could fullfill their clear duty to preserve as much car storage as possible. This even works for coffee shop owners who want to keep two bus stops on the same block for their own personal gain.
The SFMTA claims this was part of their timeline all along and part of the natural SF process:
The LoHaMNA (Lower Haight Neighbors and Merchants Association) sounded the 11th hour alarm after they heard that a vehicle wouldn't have unfettered access to all the streets of San Francisco. A few equally important and long winded acryonym groups then followed suit.
The PfCoESoSF (People for Cars on Every Street of San Francisco) and MWaAfSbKECT(Merchants Who are All for Safety but Keep Every Car Thing) all have voiced their concern and distain over this safety project that's been years in the making.
It's pefectly fine to limit pedestrians and bikers, but by no means can you limit a motorist's right to drive on any street, ever.
One MWaAfSbKECT member said, "Look, it's ok to demolish entire communities for city stroads like Geary Boulevard, place parking on every street in the city, but you can't ever divert traffic off any of them. It's just assinine." When asked about the safety benefits of having fewer cars on the roads near pedestrians and bikers, they just stared blankly for a few seconds and then proceeded to discuss much needed parking and traffic lanes. He also went on to say, "and just think what could happen if people get this ridiculous idea that a car doesn't belong everywhere?"
Building areas like Masonic & Geary that cater exclusively to cars is fine. Diverting traffic off one street in SF is absolutely forbidden. Ask any merchant aka "traffic engineer".
The SFMTA expects to come back with a watered down, visionless Wiggle design sometime in June.
Endangered a pedestrian's safety? Get ready to walk through that same intersection 100 times. image found here.
Motorists that blow through red lights, stop signs, and otherwise endanger pedestrians during their grueling race against time are in for a rude awaking. San Francisco officials understand that ticketing a small number of offenders isn't going to do much to stem the rash of injury and deaths in the city. They've come up with a pilot program that doesn't affect a driver's pocketbook. Instead it forces the offender to cross the same intersection 100 times or more by foot, depending on the offense. It's called "Crosswalk Karma" and it aims to even out the disparity between people walking and people driving.
Jeff might actually yield to peds in this dangerous crosswalk next time in his car image found here
Jeff Linger, caught running a red light in a heavily pedestrian area, was sentenced to cross the intersection 156 times during rush hour. Jeff argued, "this is cruel and unusual punishment" and followed with, "and I will never run though a red light again... those drivers out here are insane!" A few offenders have offered ten to twenty times the normal fine just to get out of this program. Cheryl Gardner, in tears, said, "I'll be sure to just wait until the pedestrians pass through the crosswalk the next time around. This area is scary."
Cheryl, agitated, crosses the same street she blew through with her car a month ago. 56 more times to go, Cheryl! Image found here.
San Francisco projects traffic related injuries and fatalities to drop 100% in one year, but it's not without its opponents. Amnesty International expressed their "grave concern" this barbaric punishment that puts motorists "at extreme risk of death or permanently disabling injury". The United Nations is also deciding on whether or not to charge SF with crimes against humanity.
"Does this look like a problem caused by pedestrian safety improvments, public transit and bike lanes, morons? "- SFMTA Image found here
The San Francisco Metro Transit Association has been under a lot of fire recently from angry, math impared individuals and their poorly written websites, blaming them for everything under the sun. Finally, after years of taking this abuse, they've finally released an open letter to the angry motorists of San Francisco:
Dear Angry SF Motorists,
Screw it. You can't have nice things. You can't be trusted to drive safely or sanely on a big wide street with multiple lanes. Is there ever a signal rotation that goes by without one of you jackasses speeding through it? We have to tell cops to patrol you every single hour of every single day because we know you're doing stupid shit out there. You treat pedestrians and cyclists like they're obstacles in a game and not real people. You can't be relied upon to actually move your car after the allotted time so we have to babysit and ticket you. You can't handle even the slightest traffic jam without losing your shit. We have to send out traffic babysitters anytime something takes a few seconds away from your precious speedy commute.
You can't share, you can't be safe, and you can't be trusted for anything. You don't deserve to have anything nice.
"Does this look like the kind of thing we should have to prevent you from doing? Can you at least attempt to hold onto one shred of decency when you're in your car? image found here.
You complain that you don't have enough parking? We put parking everywhere, even on busy arterial streets like a lunatic, but you still want more. Are you serious that the ENTIRE LENGTH of the California Coast isn't enough for you? Why are you being such selfish jerks? You live in a city that was meant for, at most, 4,000 cars per square mile and now we're at 10,000. We're terribly sorry if you have a problem with simple math and geometry. We'll gladly pay for a semester so you can relearn grade school math.
Seriously? This isn't enough? This is more than TWICE the mount SF was every supposed to have? And you wonder why there's car congestion? image found here
Why are you blaming us for the parking issue? Why don't you blame your neighbor that hasn't actually used his cars in over a month? Or that family that NEVER parks in their garage because they don't want to move their pingpong table or clear the garbage out of it? Why don't you blame your neighbor that has that big "Do Not Park" sign in front of his garage? You know they never use it. Quit blaming us you morons.
We gave unfettered access to the street but you continue to stop in pedestrian areas and blast through stop signs. Is this what you do with every single street that's designed for you? You can't even signal properly half the time - Seriously, look at yourselves, you're like children out there with the honking horns and skidding brakes and a complete disregard for anyone but yourselves. What kind of adult acts like this?
"Has a pedestrian or cyclist ever come even close to creating this kind of carnage? And you want us to make it easier for you to drive in the city? Are you insane? image found here
And for your people who have turned to the internet with statements like "Fix the MTA", do you have any idea what you're even talking about? Have you even noticed any of the improvements we've made in the past few years? We're even getting good Yelp Reviews! Do you even take MUNI? That's right, you don't. You've gotten in our way, every step of the way to improve any of the bus lines. You don't even know what we've done, and you're determined to prevent us from continuing on our successes. Guess what, we need money to do it and we don't have it and you guys say to fix things before we have the money? What kind of planet are you from? You guys seriously are THE. WORST.
Do you even have any idea of what the MTA and Muni is? The Muni's job isn't to tell you how to get there? Muni gets you there by public transportation, you idiots. This is why you don't deserve anything nice. image found here.
So guess what, we're taking away a lot of your car lanes, we're taking away some of your precious parking spots, and we're going to give the more responsible groups a chance. You'll be seeing more road diets, pedestrian safety improvements, dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes. We'll gladly exchange the kind of fresh hell you motorists unleash for the potential of some cyclists rolling through stop signs and more jaywalkers. So look out transit riders, pedestrians, and pedestrians that cycle, your time has come. Time to let the people who haven't abused their privilege have reign of the streets.
The motorists of San Francisco have a lot more to rejoice about on Sundays, because they'll now be able to drive around longer looking for FREE parking. People who find parking can now leave their car parked all day as well without ever having to move it. What could possibly go wrong!?
Great news! You can now circle around downtown SF for free parking on Sundays! image found here
Gloria Sanderson exclaims, "It took me over 20 minutes to find parking, but I saved a couple of bucks that I would have normally spent on transit, or treating myself to an ice cream after a bike ride into downtown. There's no way I'm giving up this spot all day after what I went through to earn it."
Why just pay for parking when you can circle around for 10 minutes and maybe find free parking? Image found here.
Mayor Lee's Task force came up with the idea of Sunday metering to help with congestion and also make other forms of transportation more palatable. It would also shore up more money for the underfunded SFMTA, which needs at least 3 billion dollars to upgrade the aging infrastructure. But then Mayor Lee pushed to remove Sunday parking, for, reasons... He then sent a press release congratulating himself on repealing the idea that he and his team came up in the first place. Great Job Lee!
Meanwhile, Muni will increase 25 cents to 2.25, even on Sundays. But don't worry, parking will remain FREE to anyone who can find it!
Waiting around for free stuff always is a good idea. image found here.
The Great folks at "Restore Car Dominated Balance" 2014 have a lot of well thought out policy plans for the citizens of San Francisco. They want to make sure that everything is equally shared between cars, bikes, cars, pedestrians, cars, muni, cars and cars. The SFMTA has already agreed to help pilot one of their brilliant initiatives.
Parking - It's only everywhere and if you try to manage supply you're an asshole. image found here.
Restore Car Balance Policy 3: 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.
There's little room to build additional parking garages in most neighborhoods since most of the land is already occupied by parks, businesses, houses and streets, the SFMTA has come up with an innovated way to deal with the issue. Businesses and home owners put their name into the lottery and the one drawn has their building bulldozed to make room for a new, critically needed, neighborhood parking garage. Mark Daury, longtime resident of Alamo Square, was the winner of the pilot lottery.
"Hey those are the breaks. Our neighborhood sorely needs another underutilized parking garage" - Mark Daury, image found here.
Mark Daury wasn't entirely happy that he was chosen and lost his house, but he feels it make a lot more sense than putting Car Shares on the roads, that help entice 9-13 people to give up their private automobiles, or installing parking meters with demand based pricing to help ease congestion. "Hey those are the breaks. Our neighborhood sorely needs another underutilized parking garage". If the pilot is deemed successful, additional parking craters will be constructed in the future.
Restore Car Balance wants to see more beauties like these in every SF neighborhood in the near future. image found here.
Raccoons starting their first day of training. image found here.
The SFMTA and the public are upset over the recent "Sick out" that left many of them stranded and stuck in overcrowded buses. With MUNI support at an all time low, the SFMTA has finally gone through with their "Plan R": hiring feral raccoons to run the buses.
Michelle Gregory, part time school teacher and regular transit rider commented, "if you asked me a few years ago if raccoons should operate the MUNI system I would have said 'hell no!' But after all the years of shoddy service, breakdowns, and strikes, I say why not give it a try. Can't be any worse than it already is." She also commented that getting rabies was a small price to pay for actually getting to work at a reasonable time.
"They're actually really attentive, safety conscious, and hardly ever bite." image found here.
The SFMTA says they will save hundreds of millions of dollars per year since they only have to pay for cardboard boxes and premium garbage for the transit beasts. Management is currently looking for "cute little hats and uniforms for the buggers".
**Update**
After a week of being on the job the critters started a "Racoonion", and made demands for less work during daylight hours, marshmallows, and better access to trash cans. SFMTA management immediately denied these demands, stating that it was not in the negotiated contract. The Racoonion has since left their posts and refused to work until the SFMTA meets their fair and reasonable demands.
Not going in today - Nope nope nope image found here.
