Examiner Slams Parking Initiative
The Examiner profiled the so-called “Parking for Neighborhoods” initiative today. The initiative, opposed by Rescue Muni and many others, is “a veritable minefield of unintended consequences. … Incredibly, the initiative specifies that new residential driveways have priority over lesser civic niceties such as bus stops or trees. Bus riders could be forced to walk farther and trees could be cut down to accommodate a private driveway. … Since virtually every passenger car and truck sold in America as of 2008 will qualify as low emission, this means there essentially would be no limits on how big new garages could be.”
The Muni Reform amendment passed by the Supervisors will override this initiative if passed, so voters should support it. But the Examiner is only the latest editorial page to point out that the parking measure will be a disaster on the merits.
(See also Marisa Lagos’ blog entry at the Chronicle. Also the Planning Department has a report on likely impacts.)
The Examiner article is long on opinion and short on fact. Same for the Planning Department report: If this then that, could, potentially, maybe the sky is falling. The possible effects on Muni are conjecture and mitigating measures that could be taken are not considered.
If additional curb cuts near bus stops eliminate parked cars it could improve bus service. I have an example on my block. Unfortunately, just because something is allowed does not mean it will happen. In my neighborhood there are some who use their garage for purposes other than parking their car. It may be an economic decision on the best use of that space.
I may vote for this initiative anyway, but I agree there should be no required minimum parking, especially if there is little demand. Sometimes the market does a better job than government regulation. Condos without or with limited parking seem to be selling.
The problem with the “Neighborhoods” (love the cynical naming) initiative is that it would impose lots of new minimums and radically increase the amount allowed downtown, where traffic is already at o close to a standstill. The well respected economic theory of induced demand applies here – more parking will lead to more traffic, by lowering the cost to drive downtown relative to other options, and this increase in traffic is extremely likely to cause more delays to Muni than we already experience.
The curb cut issue re bus zones refers to locations where there is already a red zone with no parking allowed. Cars coming in and out in these locations will cause more delays. Maybe not every time, but even a 30 second delay per trip on a Muni route makes a huge difference to thousands of riders a day.
In any case, the February measure will allow us to evaluate the proposal on the merits. Assisted, of course, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC contributions. At least it won’t block the November proposal to increase funding to Muni and improve accountability.
I hope we will get facts to evaluate the proposal on its merits. All I see is speculation without evidence.
Economic theory looks good on paper when all the other variables remain constant. I don’t think you can apply a model based on traffic induced by government road building to privately built garages. Nevertheless, more offices and condos downtown will without doubt increase population and traffic. More parking along with more people equals more cars. But with Transit First bus lanes Muni will continue to have an advantage over the private automobile. Muni Metro is underground and should not be affected.
We can only speculate about the increased supply on the cost of parking because we don’t know the increased demand due to the characteristics of the increased population. And we don’t know if a lower parking cost will cause many to abandon public transit. We recently moved our office to an area downtown where parking cost less. It now costs only cost only 250 percent more to park than to ride Muni compared to 570 percent more it costs before. Despite this reduction in cost, no one I know has started to drive their car.
That’s too bad because if more Muni Metro riders could be persuaded to drive their cars it would make my commute on the Metro better. The Metro is sometimes so bad that the 250 percent is staring to look better. And that is one reason I may vote for this parking initiative despite its flaws.
Where exactly are these red zones where new curb cuts are likely? When riding the bus I have been paying attention and have not seen the potential problem. Currently driveways co-exist with bus stops. I have never experienced a delay as a result. The argument about curb cuts is hogwash.
$10 per gallon bottled water yuppies who live near the JKLMNT lines but want to feel like they have “arrived” when they pull into a downtown work garage or don’t want to deal with “poor people” on the train should not be accomodated because of their status issues.
Not that I’m some self flagellating crunchy body odor rights activist from the mission or berkeley and think cars should be banned outright and rich people should be forced to socialize with the poor against their will, but transit shouldn’t be about “arriving” it should be about a smart way downtown, avoiding road rage, avoiding the use of oil and the soldiers who are killed to get it as cheaply as possible.
When you add up the time it takes to drive, sit at lights, find parking, etc, it is almost ALWAYS FASTER to just do MUNI. Period. End of story. I don’t buy this argument that driving is faster when you’re trying to go downtown. It’s not. Saying so is an outright lie.
And let’s not forget that with the $45 MUNI monthly pass, you get unlimited MUNI rides AND you get free BART rides within the city up to Daly City. And MUNI and BART interchange downtown as well as at Balboa Park and Glen Park. So there really is no “need” to drive in most cases. Get a folding bike to get you to from your door to the train and skip the bus altogether and you’ll get places even faster, on your terms and you’ll be healthier.
Why pay $600 a month payment for car, gas, insurance, PARKING, fees, repairs, etc. when a $45 a month MUNI/BART pass IS your car payment?
Need groceries? Rent a community car by the hour or mile instead of the day! citycarshare, zipcar, etc. They have locations everywhere.
Stop whining and start looking at the ways MUNI and BART are available to help you!