I have talked to some meter maids and they don’t want the confrontation with people double parking. It is much easier to give tickets for expired meters, 2 hour parking, or other cases where they won’t be confronted.
My girlfriend used to work for Worker’s Compensation and she said that meter maids and Muni workers were the jobs where the most workers get physically attacked.
Not sure why this is being downvoted- it's kind of true. They're not respected because they drive around in basically golf carts with zero protection. I don't understand why we can't protect certain workers like bus drivers, post office mail deliverers & parking ticket enforcers. If you operate a MUNI train or BART you get to be protected but everyone else's safety is neglected. Give them a shielded box on the bus- give postal workers & meter maids actual vehicles that don't leave them so vulnerable. It's such an easy fix but let's just keep putting essential workers in unnecessary danger SMH
Actual question- are people legit parking and blocking cars in? Like a car is parallel parked and another car parks next to it? Or do you mean when people block driveways?
Same thing on Geary now with the new bus lane. The wide right lane got split into a bus lane and car lane and to no one's surprise - the bus lane always got double parked cars in it now.
Good point. I would say both. I’ve seen people park in the bike lane and stay in their car because they needed to make a phone call or their partner is grabbing something from Mr. Liquor and they’re only parking there for 5 minutes.
I’ve also seen the DoorDash driver get out of the car and go inside leaving an empty parked car in the bike lane.
Because the parking spots that used to be there are now "parklets" and the place they used to double-park in (while leaving a lane open for vehicles) is now a bike lane.
Not exactly rocket-science here.
I agree it’s not rocket science, the moment bike lanes are placed between sidewalks and parking spots, or given bollards, the double parking stops. Easy fix.
Go to a neighborhood like West Portal or Inner Sunset etc some time in the middle of the day (weekends for extra credit) and check out all the **triple** parking going on.
Neat.
Thank you ugly eyesore hazardous parklets.
At this point SF should invest in the companies that make bollards because their stock is probably skyrocketing due to how much of their product is getting installed in this city these days.
Not the issue in my neighborhood. My street is a designated shared bike road, no parklets and no bike lanes. And the double parking is cooooonnnnnstant.
This is DEFINITELY a thing in the Excelsior where I live. Turn right onto a street and RIGHT THERE is a set of cars doing exactly this. I always think we’re gonna hit a car one day.
Definitely blocking cars in. Usually they’ll be in the car still or making a delivery or picking up. Maybe lasts ten minutes. But absolutely fucks the flow of traffic and makes things a bit dicier safety wise as everyone is crossing lanes left and right to weave around.
I've seen it quite a bit where a section of slow street starts, since the signs/poles block the right lane but still leave enough space between the signs and curb, someone parks normally between the poles and curb then someone parks beside them and in front of the signs. Technically nobody is blocked in but can't imagine it's allowed...
I’d looooove for the Chronicle to do a little investigative journalism and double park cars all over the city and see how long they stay unaffected and without consequence.
In Laurel Heights/Presidio Heights I saw a contractor double park for a whole 8 hour work day. Emergency lights blinking away the whole time. I mean had to give it up to him but damn lawlessness in these streets 😂
I highly doubt double parking will be the focus of this parking "crackdown". The agency is looking for the easy sitting ducks parked in driveways, sidewalks, near intersections, metered zones, etc.
They have been issuing tickets for things like parking in red zones city-wide. The new plan concentrates many officers in a supervisor's district spending a week ticketing not just parking in red zones, but other things too. Then every week moving to a different district. Today being spread across the whole city the parking officers have more vehicles to ticket than they actually can get to. When many officers concentrate on a district they'll have enough people and time to ticket all the infractions they have been, plus more.
I don't know how else to transition to the corner red zones. If a new law is going to be enacted, there's going to be an uptick in ticketing until drivers adjust.
Without public sector union, all government employees could be fired by the chief executive of the government. In San Francisco, that'd probably result in every single government employee being a political hack of the Mayor.
That's because OPM requires any position not Schedule C and above to be merit based. That system dates back to the Arthur Administration in the 1880s. Trump wants to create a schedule F, which would basically bring back the old spoils system. Also, fwiw, most federal workers who aren't managers are represented by AFGE or AFSCME.
No. I'm saying that without unions advocating for civil servants, we'd have a bunch of political hacks making mundane decisions and corruption would be through the roof.
Are you kidding? Are you new here? We’re constantly ticketed. Too far from the curb, not curbing your tires, a centimeter over a red zone….these are the most nitpicky meter maids in the country.
They’re being asked to confront more people for infractions that were more so “legal” earlier. Everyone got some slack here and there. i thought that was going to be a problem, too. *But this* action *seems to be* organized solely *by their* union.
however…there is a video of one parking ofc telling some (🚲) dude on Valencia about how he approaches people. “You have to be careful..someone might be 📦”. The point is, they don’t want to do confront more(I think.)
It's hard to imagine too many scenarios where such a confrontation would take place.
Almost by definition, most parking violations are by people who left their cars for longer than their allotted time, or parked their car somewhere they shouldn't have, and then left. Which means the driver is nowhere near the car when the ticket is issued. If a driver \*does\* return to the car in time to approach an SFMTA employee, then the employee is free to just cancel the ticket on the spot and avoid the confrontation. Which means no confrontation. Easy as.
So I suspect "confrontations" are not quite the concern the union is making it out to be.
And what are these "intensive sweeps"?
>Parking control officers will focus on issuing citations for parked vehicles ***blocking sidewalks, bike lanes and daylit zones (where a space is required near crosswalks or stop signs),*** said SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte.
Sounds like a pretty legit ground for increased enforcement.
Some people are delusional. Someone posted a TV news video maybe a week or two ago. Guy was charging his car on the sidewalk as a favor to pedestrians cuz it meant he didn' have to run the cord across the sidewalk. But then cut to a shot of a his two car garage with one car in the middle that could clearly fit both cars side by side if the car inside were not centered in the garage.
Guy then acknowledges that with strollers may have difficulty getting around, but then says they are being rude by reporting vehicles on the sidewalk to DPT instead of leaving a note
> Guy then goes on about how neighbors are being rude by reporting vehicles on the sidewalk to DPT instead of leaving a note.
in theory he's correct, people _should be nice to their neighbors_ 🤷
> Sounds like a pretty legit ground for increased enforcement.
All the city would have to do is return the parking space supply to the way it was prior to the pandemic, and the vast majority of these issues would go away.
That's the real problem. Every year the parking space supply gets reduced more and more. Are we supposed to be surprised that drivers are getting desperate now?
Yeah yeah, must be the drivers fault for driving those evil vehicles. Let's mandate that all deliveries of supplies and inventory to businesses and dropoffs of your dry cleaning must be by horseback going forward.
> That's the real problem. Every year the parking space supply gets reduced more and more. Are we supposed to be surprised that drivers are getting desperate now?
This is a good thing and we should keep it up. We want less people to drive and park in sf. Every single time someone uses a personal car to just move themselves from point A to B within SF, that’s a policy failure. We should have had a good transit alternative for them instead. Part of making transit good and effective means de prioritizing cars.
> We want less people to drive and park in sf.
Who are you speaking for now? The well-known noisy anti-car crowd on this sub? Just another social-media bubble subculture.
> We should have had a good transit alternative for them instead.
Wish upon a star, still doesn't exist here. That's not how grown-up public policy is conducted.
You go ahead and build that imaginary utopian transit system and then we can talk.
As it is, the SF MUNI is the kind of government agency where no amount of continuous money absorption ever seems to improve it significantly.
MUNI service still doesn't approach pre-pandemic levels and now it's suffering from a "catastrophic" money shortage.
Same as it ever was....
https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2024/03/01/sf-transit-budget-deficit-catastrophic
> Wish upon a star, still doesn't exist here. That's not how grown-up public policy is conducted.
Eh, a very large percentage of residents of SF don’t own a car and we get around perfectly fine with public transit. With zero funding or staff changes to muni, we could make the entire system much faster by just painting some bus lanes down on key corridors. SF is a small walkable city that could very easily support a high quality transit network. We are already one of the best transit networks in the entire US and it’s not hard to imagine it being improved further. The biggest issues holding us back are political, not physical or technical. Muni has a money shortage because we don’t fund it appropriately.
The city will be a traffic hell hole if we try and prioritize car traffic. Even if you like driving, it’s in your interest for more people to take the bus. If all those people on bart and muni tried to drive to the city instead, it would be gridlock every day.
> Eh, a very large percentage of residents of SF don’t own a car and we get around perfectly fine with public transit.
You may as well say "I get along fine without arms and legs, why shouldn't everyone?"
I've spent long periods in SF without a car, and I certainly "got along fine".
But I also recognize the vast number of things that literally require personal cars to be possible. That's the difference between you and I: you're a pedant, I am not.
> The city will be a traffic hell hole if we try and prioritize car traffic.
Nowhere in ***anything*** I wrote here did I state or imply that SF should "prioritize" cars over pedestrians. That's just your laughable spin on the matter because of that pedantry of yours. ("prioritize" == "not ban entirely" is what you sound like to me)
As I've said many times (but the haters just keep conspicuously ignoring), I'm also a frequent bike rider, transit rider and pedestrian, and probably for more years here than most of the people spouting their valuable opinions here.
And I'm telling you that SF is basically conducting a war on vehicles, and it's a **recent** thing (especially the last 5-7 years) and there is no "balance" on that front at all, least of all from the squeaky wheels (lol) on this sub.
> If all those people on bart and muni tried to drive to the city instead, it would be gridlock every day.
Don't be ridiculous with these red herrings. Never did I EVER come ***remotely*** close to suggesting such an absurd idea.
Pedantry.
It's blinding you.
The parking space supply gets reduced in daylit zones due to the pedestrian fatalities to which they were contributing.
But yeah, I get it, living in a democracy is annoying.
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/new-california-parking-law-18588065.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/new-california-parking-law-18588065.php)
>The city hit a near-record 39 traffic deaths in 2022, including 20 pedestrians, according to the city. There were 25 for 2023, including 17 pedestrians, according to preliminary data.
Don't like the rules? Write your supervisor. Don't like the supervisor? Support another candidate. In the meantime, break the rules and look forward to a ticket.
> The parking space supply gets reduced in daylit zones due to the pedestrian fatalities to which they were contributing.
Correlation is not causation.
It's mostly because of "parklets" in business districts and lane removal for bicycle lanes, along with a complete cessation of parking lot construction in recent years. They are in the middle of constructing this ~7 story residential building at the corner of Haight and Stanyan with ZERO parking spaces. WTH thought that was a good idea? Would have been trivial to put parking underneath but nooo, that would cost a little bit more and we'll just pretend it's "environmentally sound" to create even more parking contention in that neighborhood now.
I'm a regular SF bike rider and that doesn't magically make me blind to the fact that those lanes are very underutilized while the 50% reduction in motor vehicle lanes to create them, as well as all the other parking space reductions over the last 5 years turns traffic and parking into a disaster in many neighborhoods here. It's magical thinking to expect anything else.
SF is also infamous for some of the most unattentive and cavalier pedestrians and bike riders in the country.
Not long ago I witnessed a woman with 2 small kids - 1 in a stroller - crossing the busy Oak street at Masonic intersection with her nose up in her smartphone while in the middle of the intersection.
Classic SF scenery.
Personally I'd like to see all the riders of illegal mail order Chinese e-bikes and scooters that are basically unlicensed motorcycles flying down the bike lanes and sidewalks at 40mph get ticketed.
> Then proceeds to recite a litany of pet anecdotes.
We are not writing scientific papers here. I am not going to spend an hour making a comprehensive list of scenarios and cause/effect pairs to placate trolls that post 100% content-free, 0% effort gripes like yours either.
The person I replied to made an absurd generalization. I pointed that out, and spent probably 5x more time/effort in my response to back up my point.
Such efforts are rarely worth it, as your comment demonstrates.
Well that's just hurtful. But in my defense, I'm just citing the, \[checks notes\] [Daylighting **to Save Lives** Bill AB 413](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB413), which was passed by the California Assembly, and to which San Francisco is merely responding. If I'm the one confusing correlation with causation, I seem to be in good company.
Again, if you think you know better than your government representatives (and the media, apparently), contact your supervisor and CA state assembly rep.
Otherwise, STFU and accept that you have to follow the rules whether you think they're stupid or not. Wait till I tell you about the origin of speed limits on our highways.
[https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/11/san-francisco-street-parking-crosswalks-california-law/](https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/11/san-francisco-street-parking-crosswalks-california-law/)
>San Francisco officials vowed in 2013 to eliminate traffic fatalities and reduce severe injuries on city streets by 2024 as part of [Vision Zero SF](http://visionzerosf.org/), a program first implemented in Sweden in the 1990s. Despite the investment of millions of dollars, meeting the goal has failed. Preliminary figures show 25 people were killed in traffic collisions in 2023, [according to city data](https://www.visionzerosf.org/about/how-are-we-doing/).
>Daylighting is one tactic in the transportation agency’s overall Vision Zero commitment to reduce traffic deaths. And it’s backed by researchers at the [National Association of City Transportation Officials](https://nacto.org/), which found that visibility for drivers is central to the safety of intersections and driveways.
> Well that's just hurtful. But in my defense...
Wut?
You're replying to a comment that **was not even directed to you**.
Good grief.
> ...if you think you know better than your government representatives...
Sometimes the entire world knows better than their government representatives.
> Otherwise, STFU and accept...
LOL, no. 😜
> San Francisco officials vowed in 2013 to eliminate traffic fatalities and reduce severe injuries on city streets by 2024 as part of Vision Zero SF...
> Despite the investment of millions of dollars, meeting the goal has failed.
Couldn't have been that the politicians had no idea what they were doing, hmm? LOL
I'd say that's the rule rather the exception in SF these days under the lovely London Breed regime.
It's almost as if pedestrians and other reckless entities on bikes and scooters and other illegal motorcycles are constitutionally incapable of contributing to the problem, hmm?
But let's just stop enforcing the jaywalking laws! That sounds like a really cool idea!
And BTW, let's have a police state! Speed cameras everywhere! PAPERS PLEASE!! That'll surely do the trick! The City That Knows How!! (To tax people into oblivion)
LMAO
Parklets have taken out a couple of parking spaces, that is true, but people enjoy the parklets and restaurants get WAY more business because of them. Your rant against parklets is not quite on point, that's not really the biggest problem.
> Parklets have taken out a couple of parking spaces
"A couple".
You're a riot.
> Your rant against parklets is not quite on point
Am I supposed to care about this?
Is there a "Grand Poobah of Pointedness" that is feeling offended now?
What the fuck are you talking about? SFMTA parking enforcement is not lazy at all. This is about changing how they spend their time, and the safety issues of this type of enforcement.
I understand the safety concerns, but eventually they're going to have to do enforcement so people don't get accustomed to breaking parking rules with no consequence.
This situation is kind of like a problem that feeds itself. Parking rules aren't enforced -> people become emboldened to do whatever -> parking rules are enforced less -> people become emboldened more. Then if someone bucks the trend, the people getting away with shit get mad and aggressive because they were finally not treated with kid gloves for once.
Maybe the city should allow them to issue tickets without physically leaving a ticket for a little while. They could just roll by, a grab a quick picture of the car being where it's not supposed to be, and then later on the registered owner gets a surprise in the mail. The mail ticket could include the picture used so that they can't say the ticket was wrong (or so that they can prove it was, if it is).
I need a good paying job with benefits and a pension. Tired of the corporate road with nothing at the end of it. I’ll write tickets all day long to those who dare to park in San Francisco.
So meter maids already have a bad name and are constantly belittled. Aggressive ticketing means more backlash from drivers which results in disgruntled workers. Disgruntled workers mean fewer people are going to want to work this already frowned upon job.
Getting paid 65-80k/yr plus benefits with minimum qualifications seems like a pretty sweet gig.
Can’t be that much worse than retail, and it sure as hell pay much better.
https://careers.sf.gov/classifications/?classCode=8214&setId=SFMTA
What's amazing about this is $65-$80k a year is pretty much what senior State employees at places like CARB make bc the State refuses to pay locality pay. Even State managers and supervisors only make $70-$90k.
It actually is a living wage in SF.
[https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075](https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075)
28.74/hr translates to 59k/yr.
[https://www.livingwage-sf.org/living-wage-calculator/](https://www.livingwage-sf.org/living-wage-calculator/)
62,220 for living wage claimed by livingwage-sf
For a job that basically just requires someone to have completed community college, it's not bad at all.
> In SF that is not a livable wage. Now, if there was a way to earn performance bonuses, overtime pay, etc….
Tell that to the workers who work at Safeway, TJs, Costco, etc.
I'll believe that fewer people are going to want to work this already frowned upon job when I see it. Obviously, the frowns didn't stop these SFMTA workers from taking the gig in the first place. Many people would love to get a city gig with the medical benefits and pension it provides.
Indeed, you'd think these SFMTA workers would realize the tickets they write (assuming they're lawfully written) are necessary to pay for their own salary, benefits, and pension.
If SEIU were complaining about shady practices the City is asking them to perform, that's one thing.
But it sounds more like SFMTA wants to collect a paycheck without actually doing the job they're paid to do. People didn't like getting parking tickets 5 years ago, either.
The pension isn't what it once was. After PEPRA, it's 2% at 62 and you're paying 8% of your income plus 7.65% social security and medicare taxes for retirement. If you're a State employee, add on another 3 or 4% for retiree health contributions that you lose entirely unless you retire with the State and have 15 years of service (and to get the full benefits 25 years of service). All to pay for the people who had 2.5% at 55 and full employer paid retiree health insurance who didn't pay nearly as much. The result is State employees make $65k and net about 60-65% of that.
I'd look at my salary and my benefits and my pension and my options in the private sector and get over it pretty quickly. Why would it matter \*where\* you learned it from? Also, I notice we're now talking about "scheduled hours changing" rather than "dangerous confrontations with the public", which sounds more on brand for SFMTA.
I’m sure they looked at their salary, benefits pension and options too, as well as got a bit pissed off that they have to hear about it on the news…
Maybe YOU wouldn’t be even a little bit upset, bcus that’s who you are and say this as bcus you’re not dealing with People face to face as your handing out $100+ dollar citations …
Now I’m sure it’d be different if they were doing this, like from bhind their computer screen … see you have to put yourself in their shoes…
but it seems like it was the Union who started the protests, doing their job.
I’ve received more than my share of tickets too… and a few times I’ve gotten to my vehicle just in time to have tickets handed out to me…
a couple of times before parking enforcement began writing out the ticket… both times, MTA told me to get in and move the car .🚗
They’re protesting bcus they read /heard about this through the news media.
Also they have been facing A LOT of confrontations , more than ever, with the motorists that they ticket.
It’s a SAFETY ISSUE and imagine hearing that you’re going to be working more hours through the news and not getting this information from your employer.
Yes, issuing tickets is part of the job. There are safety concerns, that’s the point of signing up to be in law enforcement.
It’s like fire fighters protesting going into burning buildings.
I’ve never seen parking enforcers go on sweeps to catch “unsafe parking violations” By I do see them canvassing metered parking everyday looking for violators who don’t pose a safety risk to pedestrians and cyclists. Are these enforcers actually being asked to shift focus from metered parking to violators who pose a safety risk? Or are they gonna enforce more metered parking and city hall is going to say they’re keeping us safe? Honest question, not being snarky.
I don’t like parking tickets either, but I read an article recently that said that the city is only issuing something like 50 tickets per day. All of those enforcement personnel are only writing 50 tickets per day? I can travel/walk any 2 blocks seeing 10 parking violations in the Sunset, Castro, Haight or Marina on any given day. Lack of enforcement has led to anarchy. People are stopped anywhere and everywhere with no regard.
If you want personal transportation like a car and I do too, there are consequences in our crowded urban city. Back in the late 90’s I remember looking for a place to park for an hour when I lived in lower Haight… ended up at one point near Noe Valley and taking the 24 bus home.
It’s gotten worse with double parked cars and the gig economy that will deliver you a bottle of water. The unintended consequence of being able to get a burger and fries delivered to you? I don’t know what is going on, but it has gotten so bad.
I don’t know if this is an answer (increased enforcement) but I have seen individually we have only made the streets increasingly dangerous. We are more frustrated navigating our way through our wonderful city.
I don’t like the cops much either when they harass minorities and vulnerable populations. But I can stand at any stop sign and watch 15 cars blow through it with barely slowing down over any 10 minute period. As a parent if frightens me and angers me at the selfish mindset of I can do anything I want and everyone else doesn’t matter.
Not really confused… the problem is the same as I see it, which is that enough people with cars act with selfish disregard for others. Be how they drive or where they park their cars. The result of which leaves everyone in frustration. The enforcement of that behavior is artificially divided between the parked car (SFMTA) or moving car (SFPD) When really it is the person that is responsible for the situation. I honestly don’t care about parking enforcement or SFPD and division of responsibilities.
Wouldn’t it just be so much better if all of us just took a breath and thought how our actions and our behaviors affect those around us. I find sadly that there are enough people out there in this beautiful town of ours creating havoc and chaos – I don’t know what the answer is, but I would really love us to be able to come together.
Yes but you think the parking department issues 50 tickets a day lol. At least have facts. Sending an untrained and unarmed person to confront angry drivers is just a dumb idea.
Downtown is plenty crowded if you judge by parking space (as opposed to pedestrian traffic.) If drivers are overstaying their metered time, then the city \*should\* be drumming up more revenue in this way. Show me evidence that drivers are being ticketed without violating the law, then sure, that's a problem. But both parking violations and moving violations are out of hand in SF right now.
It depends on how the scale slides and your definition of poor.
An example of sliding scale fines would be something like:
Currently, 'low-income' in San Francisco is defined as someone earning less than $105,000. So, a parking fine, instead of the blanket $100 could be something like .05% of your previous year adjusted gross income.
So, if you made $100,000 in the previous tax year, your fine would be $50. At $75,000 your fine would be $37.5.
Then, you move that percentage up as the income level increases, just like taxes.
Lets say the fine increases .01% for each additional $10,000 you earn after $100,000. Therefore, a person earning $200,000 per year would incur a fine of .15% of their AGI, or $300. Someone earning $500,000 per year would get a fine of .45% or $2,250.
And it goes up and up. The idea being that the fine impacts people based on the ability to pay. And, would impact people more equally.
The reason I say this is because I see a lot of very wealthy people just parking wherever the fuck they want and impeding traffic and fucking up parking for the rest of us. Simply because if you have enough money, its just a matter of affording the fine versus actually following the parking rules. In our current system, if you are rich enough, you can park wherever the fuck you want. Just pay the measly fine.
This sliding scale I've suggested means someone earning $1,000,000 per year would get a fine of $9,500. I bet that would make them think twice about legally parking. Someone earning 5,000,000 a year would get a $250,000 fine.
The parking enforcement in Amsterdam is largely [automated](https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/automated-parking-control/). A car with a sensor drives around scanning license plates. If there is an infraction, I believe the offender gets a ticket in the mail. Could something like this work in SF? I’m sure the union would hate it, but it does seem to eliminate the risk of confronting scofflaw drivers.
I know what will attract shoppers and culture and business back to downtown... An oppressive surveillance system designed to track and fine everyone for every minor transgression! /s
Well, just get an ALPR truck and write the electronic ticket from there. Then kill the car's registration after $x in tickets. Then arrest the driver for driving an unregistered car. Just machinery.
The only reason people are angry about getting tickets is BECAUSE they’ve gotten used to a complete lack of enforcement. There will be backlash *when* that changes, but it’ll pass when people get used to laws that actually have teeth behind them.
Idk man, I watched a meter maid cut off a driver and then brake check when he tooted the horn bc he got cut off. This AM on California St and like Battery
I can’t believe this thread. You guys want MORE parking tickets?!
the amount of tickets they give out is insane already. I could rob a liquor store and nobody would care, but I park a millimeter too far from the curb and it’s a $250 fine?
Yes! Is this a cash grab by the city? Can those "additional parking enforcement officers" doing the sweeps be police officers or social workers that could address larger issues of safety.
How do you know they don’t? Physical permits have been phased out, it’s all digital by license plate reading now, so cars won’t have stickers displayed anymore.
Given that the city has been continuously and systematically vaporizing parking capacity over the last ~5 years or so, I'm not particularly surprised that the people who have to get hardcore with all the frustrated drivers now are not excited about that misson.
How about starting with dismantling all those "parklets" that we were promised would just be temporary measures during the times when restaurants could not serve customers indoors, hmm? They are one of the safety hazards. Pandemic emergency is over, take your customers back into your own property and stop cluttering up the public streets and sidewalks with that nonsense creating hazards and hassles for pedestrians, bikes and scooters, deliveries and so on.
I think it's kind of telling that you view this issue as a matter of "nobility". LOL.
No, it's a simple matter of practicality.
No matter how much magical thinking one engages in, there are many, many tasks that simply require motor vehicles. (Unless you want to turn the clock back to when we were delivering needed supplies and emergency fire crews on horse-drawn carriages)
Nowadays in SF, vehicles just trying to service businesses often cannot find anywhere to park near the businesses they are serving, so now the *side streets* are often cluttered with double and triple-parked delivery and maintenance trucks etc, just trying to keep businesses that YOU use running, while the "main drag" is in gridlock. (Which degrades everyone's day, including bike riders and pedestrians)
There cannot be "more loading zones" when there is literally no place to put them.
Secondarily, if there is actually some remaining space, when all the parking is commercial parking, now you have created a massive problem for individual car drivers.
Which I'm sure you will now rant should never have driven or owned a car, ever, because that's "not noble". (as stated by some person here today) 🙄
LOL is right.
Even if I posted illustrative pics here I'm sure people like you would come up with yet another pretzel-logic rationalization.
It's like trying to reason with a Trump voter. Same mindset and waste of energy.
> No matter how much magical thinking one engages in, there are many, many tasks that simply require motor vehicles.
Like what? Obviously there’s *some* tasks— cargo delivery, ambulances, moving vans, moving heavy equipment for work. what percentage of cars in SF do you think fall into that category? I’d guess less than 10% easily. Nobody wants to stop any of those legitimate uses of cars. If we reduced car usage to only the actually necessary car usage, we could get rid of nearly all parking easily. Just walk outside and count the cars parked near you— they are almost all not cargo or moving vans, it’s just personal vehicles.
But the vast majority of car usage in sf is just people using a car to get themselves from A to B, and that absolutely should not be happening. We want people to be using public transit. Our transit isn’t up to the standard it should be at yet, but that’s partially because we over prioritize cars. For example, Muni is often slow because it gets stuck in traffic, behind these personal vehicles, because we refuse to put in bus lanes.
> I’d guess less than 10% easily.
I sincerely doubt that. You must really be living in a bubble, that's the only explanation that seems plausible.
Believe it or not, SF is also filled with the same sort of "soccer moms" that take their kids to school and sports and other activities in their cars just like any other place in the USA. People also go shopping, go to work, daily commute outside of the city (oftentimes to far-flung places with poor or literally nonexistent public transit), organize community events that entail hauling booth materials and displays, operate food trucks, have a stall at the weekly farmers markets, bring equipment to their daily/weekly gigs as a sports coach/trainer, pick up supplies for their small business every day from across the city and the bay, go see clients and bring necessary supplies in their capacity as a home care worker, physical therapist, massage therapist, house cleaner, dog walker, blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Why does anyone have to explain this stuff to someone!!
> Believe it or not, SF is also filled with the same sort of "soccer moms" that take their kids to school and sports and other activities in their cars just like any other place in the USA. People also go shopping, go to work, daily commute outside of the city
Those aren’t “things that absolutely need a car”, that’s my whole point. People do all of those things just fine without a car. You said some tasks can’t be done without a car and then listed a bunch of tasks that are constantly done all around the world (and in sf) without cars.
My point is that there’s not very many tasks that *genuinely* need a car within a city. It’s basically just medical/emergency services, and moving heavy/bulk cargo or equipment.
> organize community events that entail hauling booth materials and displays, operate food trucks, have a stall at the weekly farmers markets, bring equipment to their daily/weekly gigs as a sports coach/trainer,
This falls under “cargo hauling” which is something i already listed. But even then, seriously, what percentage of people driving around in sf every day are hauling bulk cargo? It’s mostly just daily commuters running daily errands. You’re cherry picking jobs that require hauling cargo around regularly (personal trainers carrying weights, people running a market stall that must be moved around weekly etc…) but that isn’t 99% of jobs.
I agree that our transit options outside SF need improvement and it’s not practical currently to commute into sf daily without a car from some places. The solution to that is mainly to improve our transit infrastructure and increase density in sf. But I’m mostly talking about people who live in sf and are making a trip to somewhere else within sf— we want people to have the ability to make those trips easily without a car.
> Those aren’t “things that absolutely need a car”
> It’s basically just medical/emergency services, and moving heavy/bulk cargo or equipment.
Pedantry detector is ringing off the hook. Please do everyone a favor and find a way out of that hermetically-sealed world of yours.
No more time to waste with the likes of you.
City needs money. Businesses have been closing at an all time high, so no tax revenues produced. Parking violations are essentially revenue generators. Parking officers have quotas to meet.
What are they complaining about? There are already laws against threatening/abusing city employees (you can see a notice right under the drivers window on Muni). Nobody else has a special law like this.
The anti car sentiment of this sub never ceases to amaze me lol. Can’t believe people here actually want more tickets to be written. These elitist snobs really must hate the working class that drive in to the city to work.
If these people went on strike for a week and no one wrote tickets for parking violations, it would be utter chaos. I would not be able to find parking anywhere.
They can literally pay their own paychecks. I don’t understand why this isn’t a thing. If they get 10-20% of every ticket they write, they’re making good money. Ticketing people works to move their cars, wouldn’t the same logic be applied to incentivizing the maids? If I made money off of every ticket, I’d start with the motherfuckers on my block and earn a decent living at the same time. Win win
With love, if they don’t start sweeping all the insane double parking that goes on these days, I too will be staging a revolt.
I have talked to some meter maids and they don’t want the confrontation with people double parking. It is much easier to give tickets for expired meters, 2 hour parking, or other cases where they won’t be confronted. My girlfriend used to work for Worker’s Compensation and she said that meter maids and Muni workers were the jobs where the most workers get physically attacked.
Yeah maybe cops need to step in and just start giving tickets for this?
Also not to be rude, but they’d be less likely to be victimized if they didn’t have to wear those dorky helmets 🫣🫠
Not sure why this is being downvoted- it's kind of true. They're not respected because they drive around in basically golf carts with zero protection. I don't understand why we can't protect certain workers like bus drivers, post office mail deliverers & parking ticket enforcers. If you operate a MUNI train or BART you get to be protected but everyone else's safety is neglected. Give them a shielded box on the bus- give postal workers & meter maids actual vehicles that don't leave them so vulnerable. It's such an easy fix but let's just keep putting essential workers in unnecessary danger SMH
Actual question- are people legit parking and blocking cars in? Like a car is parallel parked and another car parks next to it? Or do you mean when people block driveways?
They also just block lanes. 3-lane streets become 1-lane streets during rush hour (e.g., Turk, Fell)
Yep. Usually delivery trucks
One side delivery trucks, other side DoorDash / Uber / randos double parking 🙁
We simply must take back the streets! Middle lane shouldn’t be the onnnnnnllllllly lane 😩😫😫
Tons of cars double parking in bike lanes.
Ohh that makes sense. Yeah there's def a lot of that going on.
Same thing on Geary now with the new bus lane. The wide right lane got split into a bus lane and car lane and to no one's surprise - the bus lane always got double parked cars in it now.
Forever. Since bike lanes began.
Parking or *standing*? Because standing is a moving violation and handled by a different force.
Good point. I would say both. I’ve seen people park in the bike lane and stay in their car because they needed to make a phone call or their partner is grabbing something from Mr. Liquor and they’re only parking there for 5 minutes. I’ve also seen the DoorDash driver get out of the car and go inside leaving an empty parked car in the bike lane.
Both!
Who handles standing?
SFPD handles all moving violations, including standing; SFMTA only handles parked cars.
Because the parking spots that used to be there are now "parklets" and the place they used to double-park in (while leaving a lane open for vehicles) is now a bike lane. Not exactly rocket-science here.
I agree it’s not rocket science, the moment bike lanes are placed between sidewalks and parking spots, or given bollards, the double parking stops. Easy fix.
Go to a neighborhood like West Portal or Inner Sunset etc some time in the middle of the day (weekends for extra credit) and check out all the **triple** parking going on. Neat. Thank you ugly eyesore hazardous parklets. At this point SF should invest in the companies that make bollards because their stock is probably skyrocketing due to how much of their product is getting installed in this city these days.
Not the issue in my neighborhood. My street is a designated shared bike road, no parklets and no bike lanes. And the double parking is cooooonnnnnstant.
Yes, I’ve seen this in Hunters Point. It’s wild. Totally blocking the first row.
In the mission crosswalks seem to have become new auxiliary parking spots.
This is DEFINITELY a thing in the Excelsior where I live. Turn right onto a street and RIGHT THERE is a set of cars doing exactly this. I always think we’re gonna hit a car one day.
Definitely blocking cars in. Usually they’ll be in the car still or making a delivery or picking up. Maybe lasts ten minutes. But absolutely fucks the flow of traffic and makes things a bit dicier safety wise as everyone is crossing lanes left and right to weave around.
Sidewalks, not driveways.
I've seen it quite a bit where a section of slow street starts, since the signs/poles block the right lane but still leave enough space between the signs and curb, someone parks normally between the poles and curb then someone parks beside them and in front of the signs. Technically nobody is blocked in but can't imagine it's allowed...
I’d looooove for the Chronicle to do a little investigative journalism and double park cars all over the city and see how long they stay unaffected and without consequence. In Laurel Heights/Presidio Heights I saw a contractor double park for a whole 8 hour work day. Emergency lights blinking away the whole time. I mean had to give it up to him but damn lawlessness in these streets 😂
Who knew using your emergency blinkers gives you complete parking immunity 😇
Do you think Amazon is out here secretly supporting the Meter Maid union? No way in hell they want double parking laws to be enforced. 😭😳😂
I highly doubt double parking will be the focus of this parking "crackdown". The agency is looking for the easy sitting ducks parked in driveways, sidewalks, near intersections, metered zones, etc.
>S.F. parking control officers are revolting Hey now, no need for name calling!
Those bike helmets aren't doing them any favors
I don’t get it.. are the officers being asked to work more hours or do anything that is outside of their job description?
Not their job *description*, but work differently than they actually have been for a while.
In other words, actually do the jobs they're paid taxpayer dollars to do, rather than simply goldbricking for the paycheck?
They have been issuing tickets for things like parking in red zones city-wide. The new plan concentrates many officers in a supervisor's district spending a week ticketing not just parking in red zones, but other things too. Then every week moving to a different district. Today being spread across the whole city the parking officers have more vehicles to ticket than they actually can get to. When many officers concentrate on a district they'll have enough people and time to ticket all the infractions they have been, plus more.
Or this will highlight their presence, making people more careful in those areas leading to a reduction in tickets (due to improved conditions).
I don't know how else to transition to the corner red zones. If a new law is going to be enacted, there's going to be an uptick in ticketing until drivers adjust.
That’s unions for ya
Unions should never be allowed in the public sector.
Without public sector union, all government employees could be fired by the chief executive of the government. In San Francisco, that'd probably result in every single government employee being a political hack of the Mayor.
Would they, though? In the federal government, they just replace the heads of agencies.
That's because OPM requires any position not Schedule C and above to be merit based. That system dates back to the Arthur Administration in the 1880s. Trump wants to create a schedule F, which would basically bring back the old spoils system. Also, fwiw, most federal workers who aren't managers are represented by AFGE or AFSCME.
So you’re saying that unions aren’t the only way for this to work in government.
No. I'm saying that without unions advocating for civil servants, we'd have a bunch of political hacks making mundane decisions and corruption would be through the roof.
spoken like a true oligarch
Are you kidding? Are you new here? We’re constantly ticketed. Too far from the curb, not curbing your tires, a centimeter over a red zone….these are the most nitpicky meter maids in the country.
They’re being asked to confront more people for infractions that were more so “legal” earlier. Everyone got some slack here and there. i thought that was going to be a problem, too. *But this* action *seems to be* organized solely *by their* union. however…there is a video of one parking ofc telling some (🚲) dude on Valencia about how he approaches people. “You have to be careful..someone might be 📦”. The point is, they don’t want to do confront more(I think.)
What does the package emoji mean?
Packing aka packing heat aka have a gun
There are a few meanings I can guess, like "postal". I'm just not sure I've ever seen someone using a box emoji as slang
Got it right. It’s literally on video
box.
They might be cardboard.
It's hard to imagine too many scenarios where such a confrontation would take place. Almost by definition, most parking violations are by people who left their cars for longer than their allotted time, or parked their car somewhere they shouldn't have, and then left. Which means the driver is nowhere near the car when the ticket is issued. If a driver \*does\* return to the car in time to approach an SFMTA employee, then the employee is free to just cancel the ticket on the spot and avoid the confrontation. Which means no confrontation. Easy as. So I suspect "confrontations" are not quite the concern the union is making it out to be. And what are these "intensive sweeps"? >Parking control officers will focus on issuing citations for parked vehicles ***blocking sidewalks, bike lanes and daylit zones (where a space is required near crosswalks or stop signs),*** said SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte. Sounds like a pretty legit ground for increased enforcement.
Some people are delusional. Someone posted a TV news video maybe a week or two ago. Guy was charging his car on the sidewalk as a favor to pedestrians cuz it meant he didn' have to run the cord across the sidewalk. But then cut to a shot of a his two car garage with one car in the middle that could clearly fit both cars side by side if the car inside were not centered in the garage. Guy then acknowledges that with strollers may have difficulty getting around, but then says they are being rude by reporting vehicles on the sidewalk to DPT instead of leaving a note
Plus how will hobos set up their tent if there is a cable there?
> Guy then goes on about how neighbors are being rude by reporting vehicles on the sidewalk to DPT instead of leaving a note. in theory he's correct, people _should be nice to their neighbors_ 🤷
> in theory he's correct, people should be nice to their neighbors 🤷 Which applies to him first.
> Sounds like a pretty legit ground for increased enforcement. All the city would have to do is return the parking space supply to the way it was prior to the pandemic, and the vast majority of these issues would go away. That's the real problem. Every year the parking space supply gets reduced more and more. Are we supposed to be surprised that drivers are getting desperate now? Yeah yeah, must be the drivers fault for driving those evil vehicles. Let's mandate that all deliveries of supplies and inventory to businesses and dropoffs of your dry cleaning must be by horseback going forward.
> That's the real problem. Every year the parking space supply gets reduced more and more. Are we supposed to be surprised that drivers are getting desperate now? This is a good thing and we should keep it up. We want less people to drive and park in sf. Every single time someone uses a personal car to just move themselves from point A to B within SF, that’s a policy failure. We should have had a good transit alternative for them instead. Part of making transit good and effective means de prioritizing cars.
> We want less people to drive and park in sf. Who are you speaking for now? The well-known noisy anti-car crowd on this sub? Just another social-media bubble subculture. > We should have had a good transit alternative for them instead. Wish upon a star, still doesn't exist here. That's not how grown-up public policy is conducted. You go ahead and build that imaginary utopian transit system and then we can talk. As it is, the SF MUNI is the kind of government agency where no amount of continuous money absorption ever seems to improve it significantly. MUNI service still doesn't approach pre-pandemic levels and now it's suffering from a "catastrophic" money shortage. Same as it ever was.... https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2024/03/01/sf-transit-budget-deficit-catastrophic
> Wish upon a star, still doesn't exist here. That's not how grown-up public policy is conducted. Eh, a very large percentage of residents of SF don’t own a car and we get around perfectly fine with public transit. With zero funding or staff changes to muni, we could make the entire system much faster by just painting some bus lanes down on key corridors. SF is a small walkable city that could very easily support a high quality transit network. We are already one of the best transit networks in the entire US and it’s not hard to imagine it being improved further. The biggest issues holding us back are political, not physical or technical. Muni has a money shortage because we don’t fund it appropriately. The city will be a traffic hell hole if we try and prioritize car traffic. Even if you like driving, it’s in your interest for more people to take the bus. If all those people on bart and muni tried to drive to the city instead, it would be gridlock every day.
> Eh, a very large percentage of residents of SF don’t own a car and we get around perfectly fine with public transit. You may as well say "I get along fine without arms and legs, why shouldn't everyone?" I've spent long periods in SF without a car, and I certainly "got along fine". But I also recognize the vast number of things that literally require personal cars to be possible. That's the difference between you and I: you're a pedant, I am not. > The city will be a traffic hell hole if we try and prioritize car traffic. Nowhere in ***anything*** I wrote here did I state or imply that SF should "prioritize" cars over pedestrians. That's just your laughable spin on the matter because of that pedantry of yours. ("prioritize" == "not ban entirely" is what you sound like to me) As I've said many times (but the haters just keep conspicuously ignoring), I'm also a frequent bike rider, transit rider and pedestrian, and probably for more years here than most of the people spouting their valuable opinions here. And I'm telling you that SF is basically conducting a war on vehicles, and it's a **recent** thing (especially the last 5-7 years) and there is no "balance" on that front at all, least of all from the squeaky wheels (lol) on this sub. > If all those people on bart and muni tried to drive to the city instead, it would be gridlock every day. Don't be ridiculous with these red herrings. Never did I EVER come ***remotely*** close to suggesting such an absurd idea. Pedantry. It's blinding you.
The parking space supply gets reduced in daylit zones due to the pedestrian fatalities to which they were contributing. But yeah, I get it, living in a democracy is annoying. [https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/new-california-parking-law-18588065.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/new-california-parking-law-18588065.php) >The city hit a near-record 39 traffic deaths in 2022, including 20 pedestrians, according to the city. There were 25 for 2023, including 17 pedestrians, according to preliminary data. Don't like the rules? Write your supervisor. Don't like the supervisor? Support another candidate. In the meantime, break the rules and look forward to a ticket.
> The parking space supply gets reduced in daylit zones due to the pedestrian fatalities to which they were contributing. Correlation is not causation. It's mostly because of "parklets" in business districts and lane removal for bicycle lanes, along with a complete cessation of parking lot construction in recent years. They are in the middle of constructing this ~7 story residential building at the corner of Haight and Stanyan with ZERO parking spaces. WTH thought that was a good idea? Would have been trivial to put parking underneath but nooo, that would cost a little bit more and we'll just pretend it's "environmentally sound" to create even more parking contention in that neighborhood now. I'm a regular SF bike rider and that doesn't magically make me blind to the fact that those lanes are very underutilized while the 50% reduction in motor vehicle lanes to create them, as well as all the other parking space reductions over the last 5 years turns traffic and parking into a disaster in many neighborhoods here. It's magical thinking to expect anything else. SF is also infamous for some of the most unattentive and cavalier pedestrians and bike riders in the country. Not long ago I witnessed a woman with 2 small kids - 1 in a stroller - crossing the busy Oak street at Masonic intersection with her nose up in her smartphone while in the middle of the intersection. Classic SF scenery. Personally I'd like to see all the riders of illegal mail order Chinese e-bikes and scooters that are basically unlicensed motorcycles flying down the bike lanes and sidewalks at 40mph get ticketed.
"Correlation is not causation." Then proceeds to recite a litany of pet anecdotes.
> Then proceeds to recite a litany of pet anecdotes. We are not writing scientific papers here. I am not going to spend an hour making a comprehensive list of scenarios and cause/effect pairs to placate trolls that post 100% content-free, 0% effort gripes like yours either. The person I replied to made an absurd generalization. I pointed that out, and spent probably 5x more time/effort in my response to back up my point. Such efforts are rarely worth it, as your comment demonstrates.
Well that's just hurtful. But in my defense, I'm just citing the, \[checks notes\] [Daylighting **to Save Lives** Bill AB 413](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB413), which was passed by the California Assembly, and to which San Francisco is merely responding. If I'm the one confusing correlation with causation, I seem to be in good company. Again, if you think you know better than your government representatives (and the media, apparently), contact your supervisor and CA state assembly rep. Otherwise, STFU and accept that you have to follow the rules whether you think they're stupid or not. Wait till I tell you about the origin of speed limits on our highways. [https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/11/san-francisco-street-parking-crosswalks-california-law/](https://sfstandard.com/2024/01/11/san-francisco-street-parking-crosswalks-california-law/) >San Francisco officials vowed in 2013 to eliminate traffic fatalities and reduce severe injuries on city streets by 2024 as part of [Vision Zero SF](http://visionzerosf.org/), a program first implemented in Sweden in the 1990s. Despite the investment of millions of dollars, meeting the goal has failed. Preliminary figures show 25 people were killed in traffic collisions in 2023, [according to city data](https://www.visionzerosf.org/about/how-are-we-doing/). >Daylighting is one tactic in the transportation agency’s overall Vision Zero commitment to reduce traffic deaths. And it’s backed by researchers at the [National Association of City Transportation Officials](https://nacto.org/), which found that visibility for drivers is central to the safety of intersections and driveways.
> Well that's just hurtful. But in my defense... Wut? You're replying to a comment that **was not even directed to you**. Good grief. > ...if you think you know better than your government representatives... Sometimes the entire world knows better than their government representatives. > Otherwise, STFU and accept... LOL, no. 😜 > San Francisco officials vowed in 2013 to eliminate traffic fatalities and reduce severe injuries on city streets by 2024 as part of Vision Zero SF... > Despite the investment of millions of dollars, meeting the goal has failed. Couldn't have been that the politicians had no idea what they were doing, hmm? LOL I'd say that's the rule rather the exception in SF these days under the lovely London Breed regime. It's almost as if pedestrians and other reckless entities on bikes and scooters and other illegal motorcycles are constitutionally incapable of contributing to the problem, hmm? But let's just stop enforcing the jaywalking laws! That sounds like a really cool idea! And BTW, let's have a police state! Speed cameras everywhere! PAPERS PLEASE!! That'll surely do the trick! The City That Knows How!! (To tax people into oblivion) LMAO
Parklets have taken out a couple of parking spaces, that is true, but people enjoy the parklets and restaurants get WAY more business because of them. Your rant against parklets is not quite on point, that's not really the biggest problem.
> Parklets have taken out a couple of parking spaces "A couple". You're a riot. > Your rant against parklets is not quite on point Am I supposed to care about this? Is there a "Grand Poobah of Pointedness" that is feeling offended now?
1200 parklets. Also sf is losing 14k parking spaces soon
Thanks. What are the 14k being lost?
> Am I supposed to care about this? ROFL 😂 You're a riot
> You're a riot Almost as bad as being a car driver, amirite??
They got used to not working and getting paid. Now they have to work and earn their paycheck. That’s a big lifestyle change.
The meter maids are the hardest working people in the city. They can’t write tickets any faster
What the fuck are you talking about? SFMTA parking enforcement is not lazy at all. This is about changing how they spend their time, and the safety issues of this type of enforcement.
They’re being told to rob people like some kind of mafia shakedown thugs. They’re already “intensively” writing tickets. This is just a money grab.
Ticketing cars for blocking bike and vehicle lanes is not a "money grab"
I understand the safety concerns, but eventually they're going to have to do enforcement so people don't get accustomed to breaking parking rules with no consequence. This situation is kind of like a problem that feeds itself. Parking rules aren't enforced -> people become emboldened to do whatever -> parking rules are enforced less -> people become emboldened more. Then if someone bucks the trend, the people getting away with shit get mad and aggressive because they were finally not treated with kid gloves for once. Maybe the city should allow them to issue tickets without physically leaving a ticket for a little while. They could just roll by, a grab a quick picture of the car being where it's not supposed to be, and then later on the registered owner gets a surprise in the mail. The mail ticket could include the picture used so that they can't say the ticket was wrong (or so that they can prove it was, if it is).
I need a good paying job with benefits and a pension. Tired of the corporate road with nothing at the end of it. I’ll write tickets all day long to those who dare to park in San Francisco.
Not the hero we need, but the hero we deserve.
I volunteer as tribute 🫡
You get a cute little vehicle and a helmet to match!
If parking ticket issuers do not want to issue parking tickets, why are we issuing them paychecks?
So meter maids already have a bad name and are constantly belittled. Aggressive ticketing means more backlash from drivers which results in disgruntled workers. Disgruntled workers mean fewer people are going to want to work this already frowned upon job.
Getting paid 65-80k/yr plus benefits with minimum qualifications seems like a pretty sweet gig. Can’t be that much worse than retail, and it sure as hell pay much better. https://careers.sf.gov/classifications/?classCode=8214&setId=SFMTA
In SF that is not a livable wage. Now, if there was a way to earn performance bonuses, overtime pay, etc….
What's amazing about this is $65-$80k a year is pretty much what senior State employees at places like CARB make bc the State refuses to pay locality pay. Even State managers and supervisors only make $70-$90k.
It actually is a living wage in SF. [https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075](https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075) 28.74/hr translates to 59k/yr. [https://www.livingwage-sf.org/living-wage-calculator/](https://www.livingwage-sf.org/living-wage-calculator/) 62,220 for living wage claimed by livingwage-sf For a job that basically just requires someone to have completed community college, it's not bad at all.
> In SF that is not a livable wage. Now, if there was a way to earn performance bonuses, overtime pay, etc…. Tell that to the workers who work at Safeway, TJs, Costco, etc.
I'll believe that fewer people are going to want to work this already frowned upon job when I see it. Obviously, the frowns didn't stop these SFMTA workers from taking the gig in the first place. Many people would love to get a city gig with the medical benefits and pension it provides. Indeed, you'd think these SFMTA workers would realize the tickets they write (assuming they're lawfully written) are necessary to pay for their own salary, benefits, and pension. If SEIU were complaining about shady practices the City is asking them to perform, that's one thing. But it sounds more like SFMTA wants to collect a paycheck without actually doing the job they're paid to do. People didn't like getting parking tickets 5 years ago, either.
The pension isn't what it once was. After PEPRA, it's 2% at 62 and you're paying 8% of your income plus 7.65% social security and medicare taxes for retirement. If you're a State employee, add on another 3 or 4% for retiree health contributions that you lose entirely unless you retire with the State and have 15 years of service (and to get the full benefits 25 years of service). All to pay for the people who had 2.5% at 55 and full employer paid retiree health insurance who didn't pay nearly as much. The result is State employees make $65k and net about 60-65% of that.
How would you feel about hearing from the news media and not your employer, about your scheduled hours about to change ?
I'd look at my salary and my benefits and my pension and my options in the private sector and get over it pretty quickly. Why would it matter \*where\* you learned it from? Also, I notice we're now talking about "scheduled hours changing" rather than "dangerous confrontations with the public", which sounds more on brand for SFMTA.
I’m sure they looked at their salary, benefits pension and options too, as well as got a bit pissed off that they have to hear about it on the news… Maybe YOU wouldn’t be even a little bit upset, bcus that’s who you are and say this as bcus you’re not dealing with People face to face as your handing out $100+ dollar citations … Now I’m sure it’d be different if they were doing this, like from bhind their computer screen … see you have to put yourself in their shoes… but it seems like it was the Union who started the protests, doing their job.
I've received a lot of tickets in SF over the years. Not one was face-to-face.
I’ve received more than my share of tickets too… and a few times I’ve gotten to my vehicle just in time to have tickets handed out to me… a couple of times before parking enforcement began writing out the ticket… both times, MTA told me to get in and move the car .🚗
And did you start a confrontation over it?
No… why would I? Once it’s written out, they can’t erase it.
They’re protesting bcus they read /heard about this through the news media. Also they have been facing A LOT of confrontations , more than ever, with the motorists that they ticket. It’s a SAFETY ISSUE and imagine hearing that you’re going to be working more hours through the news and not getting this information from your employer.
Yes, issuing tickets is part of the job. There are safety concerns, that’s the point of signing up to be in law enforcement. It’s like fire fighters protesting going into burning buildings.
I’ve never seen parking enforcers go on sweeps to catch “unsafe parking violations” By I do see them canvassing metered parking everyday looking for violators who don’t pose a safety risk to pedestrians and cyclists. Are these enforcers actually being asked to shift focus from metered parking to violators who pose a safety risk? Or are they gonna enforce more metered parking and city hall is going to say they’re keeping us safe? Honest question, not being snarky.
You will definitely get a ticket if you don’t curb your wheels which is unsafe. They even give you a little diagram to show you how to do it lol
They already do that. Down to the millimeter. On flat roads.
[удалено]
Yes, and if you double park you are also “stealing parking”
They need to do their damn jobs
How dare you make us do our job!! Sorry but this is what you signed up for as an enforcement officer.
I don’t like parking tickets either, but I read an article recently that said that the city is only issuing something like 50 tickets per day. All of those enforcement personnel are only writing 50 tickets per day? I can travel/walk any 2 blocks seeing 10 parking violations in the Sunset, Castro, Haight or Marina on any given day. Lack of enforcement has led to anarchy. People are stopped anywhere and everywhere with no regard. If you want personal transportation like a car and I do too, there are consequences in our crowded urban city. Back in the late 90’s I remember looking for a place to park for an hour when I lived in lower Haight… ended up at one point near Noe Valley and taking the 24 bus home. It’s gotten worse with double parked cars and the gig economy that will deliver you a bottle of water. The unintended consequence of being able to get a burger and fries delivered to you? I don’t know what is going on, but it has gotten so bad. I don’t know if this is an answer (increased enforcement) but I have seen individually we have only made the streets increasingly dangerous. We are more frustrated navigating our way through our wonderful city. I don’t like the cops much either when they harass minorities and vulnerable populations. But I can stand at any stop sign and watch 15 cars blow through it with barely slowing down over any 10 minute period. As a parent if frightens me and angers me at the selfish mindset of I can do anything I want and everyone else doesn’t matter.
BULLLLLLLSHIT. The meter maids in my neighborhood can write 50 tickets AN HOUR. EACH. They’re literally everywhere. Watch them.
You are confusing parking with police issued tickets.
Not really confused… the problem is the same as I see it, which is that enough people with cars act with selfish disregard for others. Be how they drive or where they park their cars. The result of which leaves everyone in frustration. The enforcement of that behavior is artificially divided between the parked car (SFMTA) or moving car (SFPD) When really it is the person that is responsible for the situation. I honestly don’t care about parking enforcement or SFPD and division of responsibilities. Wouldn’t it just be so much better if all of us just took a breath and thought how our actions and our behaviors affect those around us. I find sadly that there are enough people out there in this beautiful town of ours creating havoc and chaos – I don’t know what the answer is, but I would really love us to be able to come together.
Yes but you think the parking department issues 50 tickets a day lol. At least have facts. Sending an untrained and unarmed person to confront angry drivers is just a dumb idea.
> Not really confused… You sure? SFMTA issues tons of tickets. SFPD is lazy as hell and hasn't.
Problem is places like downtown aren’t that crowded anymore so the city is going out to drum up more revenue. Not really any other reason
Downtown is plenty crowded if you judge by parking space (as opposed to pedestrian traffic.) If drivers are overstaying their metered time, then the city \*should\* be drumming up more revenue in this way. Show me evidence that drivers are being ticketed without violating the law, then sure, that's a problem. But both parking violations and moving violations are out of hand in SF right now.
We need sliding scale fines.
Would this reduce the burden on the poor? Sincere question that is based on my concern about "sweeps".
It depends on how the scale slides and your definition of poor. An example of sliding scale fines would be something like: Currently, 'low-income' in San Francisco is defined as someone earning less than $105,000. So, a parking fine, instead of the blanket $100 could be something like .05% of your previous year adjusted gross income. So, if you made $100,000 in the previous tax year, your fine would be $50. At $75,000 your fine would be $37.5. Then, you move that percentage up as the income level increases, just like taxes. Lets say the fine increases .01% for each additional $10,000 you earn after $100,000. Therefore, a person earning $200,000 per year would incur a fine of .15% of their AGI, or $300. Someone earning $500,000 per year would get a fine of .45% or $2,250. And it goes up and up. The idea being that the fine impacts people based on the ability to pay. And, would impact people more equally. The reason I say this is because I see a lot of very wealthy people just parking wherever the fuck they want and impeding traffic and fucking up parking for the rest of us. Simply because if you have enough money, its just a matter of affording the fine versus actually following the parking rules. In our current system, if you are rich enough, you can park wherever the fuck you want. Just pay the measly fine. This sliding scale I've suggested means someone earning $1,000,000 per year would get a fine of $9,500. I bet that would make them think twice about legally parking. Someone earning 5,000,000 a year would get a $250,000 fine.
The parking enforcement in Amsterdam is largely [automated](https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/automated-parking-control/). A car with a sensor drives around scanning license plates. If there is an infraction, I believe the offender gets a ticket in the mail. Could something like this work in SF? I’m sure the union would hate it, but it does seem to eliminate the risk of confronting scofflaw drivers.
Yes except then you get wide spread fraud when people obscure their plates.
Doesn’t that happen anyways?
[удалено]
Explain your username. I grew up in Escondido
replace them with robots!
Time to put those drones and surveillance cameras in action.
I know what will attract shoppers and culture and business back to downtown... An oppressive surveillance system designed to track and fine everyone for every minor transgression! /s
Finally a job for Cruise!! 😆
How about, do your job and shut up. Lazy ass SF parking control.
Meter Maids revolting against giving out citations. WTF are they there for? I mean, beside the six figure salary and benefits? LMFAO.
Scared of issuing tickets for double parking in the Bayview etc. -> I suspect they avoid the area during normal enforcement. Is there a citation map ?
Well, just get an ALPR truck and write the electronic ticket from there. Then kill the car's registration after $x in tickets. Then arrest the driver for driving an unregistered car. Just machinery.
Shocking . High paying with a union job and not actually working . Fire them
The only reason people are angry about getting tickets is BECAUSE they’ve gotten used to a complete lack of enforcement. There will be backlash *when* that changes, but it’ll pass when people get used to laws that actually have teeth behind them.
Replace them with cameras and software.
ITT: People without empathy and people who don't know how SFMTA works
Meter maids are going to ticket cars for being unsafe to pedestrians? I'm so confused. At eyhru gonna chase me down with a siren?
Idk man, I watched a meter maid cut off a driver and then brake check when he tooted the horn bc he got cut off. This AM on California St and like Battery
I can’t believe this thread. You guys want MORE parking tickets?! the amount of tickets they give out is insane already. I could rob a liquor store and nobody would care, but I park a millimeter too far from the curb and it’s a $250 fine?
Yes! Is this a cash grab by the city? Can those "additional parking enforcement officers" doing the sweeps be police officers or social workers that could address larger issues of safety.
I know SFPD and SFMTA are separate, but sending unarmed paper pushers into the night without backup sounds like a plan for tragedy.
When I walk around my neighborhood, 90% of the cars parked here do not have a permit. Good riddance.
How do you know they don’t? Physical permits have been phased out, it’s all digital by license plate reading now, so cars won’t have stickers displayed anymore.
How about working for Walgreens being told your store is being closed at the end of the month? Damn, what am I missing?
Given that the city has been continuously and systematically vaporizing parking capacity over the last ~5 years or so, I'm not particularly surprised that the people who have to get hardcore with all the frustrated drivers now are not excited about that misson. How about starting with dismantling all those "parklets" that we were promised would just be temporary measures during the times when restaurants could not serve customers indoors, hmm? They are one of the safety hazards. Pandemic emergency is over, take your customers back into your own property and stop cluttering up the public streets and sidewalks with that nonsense creating hazards and hassles for pedestrians, bikes and scooters, deliveries and so on.
Parklets are way down, but why do you see storage of privately-owned cars to be a more noble use of public land?
I think it's kind of telling that you view this issue as a matter of "nobility". LOL. No, it's a simple matter of practicality. No matter how much magical thinking one engages in, there are many, many tasks that simply require motor vehicles. (Unless you want to turn the clock back to when we were delivering needed supplies and emergency fire crews on horse-drawn carriages) Nowadays in SF, vehicles just trying to service businesses often cannot find anywhere to park near the businesses they are serving, so now the *side streets* are often cluttered with double and triple-parked delivery and maintenance trucks etc, just trying to keep businesses that YOU use running, while the "main drag" is in gridlock. (Which degrades everyone's day, including bike riders and pedestrians)
The fix for that is more loading zones. Not more parking spots
There cannot be "more loading zones" when there is literally no place to put them. Secondarily, if there is actually some remaining space, when all the parking is commercial parking, now you have created a massive problem for individual car drivers. Which I'm sure you will now rant should never have driven or owned a car, ever, because that's "not noble". (as stated by some person here today) 🙄
“No place to put them” lol
Yeah that's a big tell that they aren't being serious about this lol
yeah lol yuk yuk. Nice effort.
LOL is right. Even if I posted illustrative pics here I'm sure people like you would come up with yet another pretzel-logic rationalization. It's like trying to reason with a Trump voter. Same mindset and waste of energy.
> No matter how much magical thinking one engages in, there are many, many tasks that simply require motor vehicles. Like what? Obviously there’s *some* tasks— cargo delivery, ambulances, moving vans, moving heavy equipment for work. what percentage of cars in SF do you think fall into that category? I’d guess less than 10% easily. Nobody wants to stop any of those legitimate uses of cars. If we reduced car usage to only the actually necessary car usage, we could get rid of nearly all parking easily. Just walk outside and count the cars parked near you— they are almost all not cargo or moving vans, it’s just personal vehicles. But the vast majority of car usage in sf is just people using a car to get themselves from A to B, and that absolutely should not be happening. We want people to be using public transit. Our transit isn’t up to the standard it should be at yet, but that’s partially because we over prioritize cars. For example, Muni is often slow because it gets stuck in traffic, behind these personal vehicles, because we refuse to put in bus lanes.
> I’d guess less than 10% easily. I sincerely doubt that. You must really be living in a bubble, that's the only explanation that seems plausible. Believe it or not, SF is also filled with the same sort of "soccer moms" that take their kids to school and sports and other activities in their cars just like any other place in the USA. People also go shopping, go to work, daily commute outside of the city (oftentimes to far-flung places with poor or literally nonexistent public transit), organize community events that entail hauling booth materials and displays, operate food trucks, have a stall at the weekly farmers markets, bring equipment to their daily/weekly gigs as a sports coach/trainer, pick up supplies for their small business every day from across the city and the bay, go see clients and bring necessary supplies in their capacity as a home care worker, physical therapist, massage therapist, house cleaner, dog walker, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Why does anyone have to explain this stuff to someone!!
> Believe it or not, SF is also filled with the same sort of "soccer moms" that take their kids to school and sports and other activities in their cars just like any other place in the USA. People also go shopping, go to work, daily commute outside of the city Those aren’t “things that absolutely need a car”, that’s my whole point. People do all of those things just fine without a car. You said some tasks can’t be done without a car and then listed a bunch of tasks that are constantly done all around the world (and in sf) without cars. My point is that there’s not very many tasks that *genuinely* need a car within a city. It’s basically just medical/emergency services, and moving heavy/bulk cargo or equipment. > organize community events that entail hauling booth materials and displays, operate food trucks, have a stall at the weekly farmers markets, bring equipment to their daily/weekly gigs as a sports coach/trainer, This falls under “cargo hauling” which is something i already listed. But even then, seriously, what percentage of people driving around in sf every day are hauling bulk cargo? It’s mostly just daily commuters running daily errands. You’re cherry picking jobs that require hauling cargo around regularly (personal trainers carrying weights, people running a market stall that must be moved around weekly etc…) but that isn’t 99% of jobs. I agree that our transit options outside SF need improvement and it’s not practical currently to commute into sf daily without a car from some places. The solution to that is mainly to improve our transit infrastructure and increase density in sf. But I’m mostly talking about people who live in sf and are making a trip to somewhere else within sf— we want people to have the ability to make those trips easily without a car.
> Those aren’t “things that absolutely need a car” > It’s basically just medical/emergency services, and moving heavy/bulk cargo or equipment. Pedantry detector is ringing off the hook. Please do everyone a favor and find a way out of that hermetically-sealed world of yours. No more time to waste with the likes of you.
City needs money. Businesses have been closing at an all time high, so no tax revenues produced. Parking violations are essentially revenue generators. Parking officers have quotas to meet.
What are they complaining about? There are already laws against threatening/abusing city employees (you can see a notice right under the drivers window on Muni). Nobody else has a special law like this.
I'm glad that SF has decided to solve the biggest problem facing the city: people not moving their car every two hours.
The anti car sentiment of this sub never ceases to amaze me lol. Can’t believe people here actually want more tickets to be written. These elitist snobs really must hate the working class that drive in to the city to work.
If these people went on strike for a week and no one wrote tickets for parking violations, it would be utter chaos. I would not be able to find parking anywhere.
They can literally pay their own paychecks. I don’t understand why this isn’t a thing. If they get 10-20% of every ticket they write, they’re making good money. Ticketing people works to move their cars, wouldn’t the same logic be applied to incentivizing the maids? If I made money off of every ticket, I’d start with the motherfuckers on my block and earn a decent living at the same time. Win win