San Francisco is an expensive city to park in. Even if you can find a space on the street with a meter, you could end up paying as much as $3 per hour for the privilege of parking there. Yet the city only averages $4 per day in collections per meter -- collecting only 22 percent as much revenue as city estimates project.
People not paying -- and not getting caught -- is one reason collections fall short. Another possible explanation, suggests this San Francisco Chronicle story, is the large amount of handicap placards, which allow people to park for free. The city has 23,000 coin-fed meters, while city residents hold 90,000 handicap parking placards, issued by the state.
"While the [Municipal Transportation Agency] supports the legitimate use of disability placards, there's no doubt that they have an effect on our parking meter revenue," Judson True, spokesman for the city's Municipal Transportation Agency, told the paper.
I guess I don't get the connection between diminished physical capacity (handicapped) and dimished financial capacity. Is the assumption in SF that handicapped people are also financially handicapped? I guess I am assuming that physical ailments are non-discriminatory in nature with all socio-economic groups having somewhat equal risk. I know several affluent people with diminished physical capacity often due to age. Maybe I'm just too calloused.
Posted by: Tom Gee | Monday, January 29, 2007 at 02:26 PM
I recently got a ticket for parking on a Sunday in a metered spot. The meter said “free parking.” I wrote to the DPT and protested my ticket. They wrote back and said that they had not made a mistake and that the ticket was issued correctly. Hmmm ok lets see cars are doubleparked in my neighborhood for two blocks long on Sunday for church, but I get a ticket for parking in a metered zone marked free.
Posted by: pegatinas | Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 07:19 PM