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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika Like many urban areas, San Francisco suffers from notorious parking problems. We've reported several times already how many intricate rules drivers must pay attention to: Street cleaning, residential parking, red, green, blue, and white curb markers, and so on. Parking at a meter is usually rather expensive. On average, the meters demand $2 per hour, but in downtown San Francisco, it's a whopping $3.50, and in the touristy area around Fisherman's Wharf, it's $3.00. The new meters are quite advanced and will accept not only coins for payment. Drivers can pay by credit card, or a parking card, which can be obtained in $20 or $50 denominations and then used at the meter, which then deducts the selected amount from the card. Before 2013, there was no need to feed the meters on Sunday. But starting January 2013, that's a thing of the past, between noon and 6pm on Sundays, meters now need to be fed just like during the week, when payments are required between 9am and 6pm. Since drivers can't leave their cars in the same spot between Saturday evening through Monday morning anymore, as it was common practice in our neighborhood Noe Valley, more temporary parking will be available during that time. But of course the city coffers will also benefit from the additional influx of money.
In general, San Francisco has been sporting innovative parking and fee collection ideas lately. A pilot project named "SFPark" changes the current parking fee dynamically, depending on the number of available parking spots. If there is high demand, the price at the meter rises, nudging drivers towards parking for shorter durations and then vacating these spots, or park in less expensive areas in the first place, because they are willing to walk a greater distance to save money. The fee displayed at the meters increases in steps of 25 cents every month (to a maximum of $6 per hour), until on average there's at least one free spot per city block. In areas with plenty of available street parking, the fee at the meter decreases accordingly. Using a smartphone app, drivers can then inquire about the current parking situation and what fees are being charged. To make this project a reality, the city would need new parking meters equipped with the technology to receive and analyze the data, though. In general, this is not a bad idea, it might lead to a better utilization of available parking space by distributing parked cars around the city more evenly. Maybe some drivers will even opt for public transportation instead of parking at a meter if the former is more economical? On the other hand, the new system won't help residents of the affected neighborhoods at all, because they need parking spots that allow parking for more than two hours.
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