More change for meters on Chestnut and Fillmore Streets

Pay Here

New SF Park sign at
Fisherman’s Wharf
Photo: IRIS ROWLEE

A novel experiment is quietly being set up on the streets of San Francisco, turning public parking spaces in seven neighborhoods into the scrutinized test subjects of SFpark, a pilot program of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) slated to begin this month.

San Francisco has set a unique record, becoming the first city ever to count all 441,000 of its public parking spots. The SFpark program will study approximately 17,500 of those parking spaces and is possibly the largest parking management study ever conducted. It will be an 18-month program with test zones in commercial areas of the Marina, Fillmore, Mission, Fisherman’s Wharf, Downtown, and South Embarcadero districts. (A map of the test area is available at www.sfpark.org.)

The equipment for the experiment has already been laid. Sensors have been set up at each parking spot in the test zones to monitor the movement of cars.

“The sensors will tell us in real time whether or not a car is there so we can measure for the first time what really is turnover, what really is the length of stay, and how many spaces are open,” says Jay Primus, project leader of SFpark.

The sensors will relay information back to a central computer system that will allow for compilation and analysis of parking-related data, as well as provide a comprehensive, real-time map of all parking movement in a zone. New meters will be installed that will allow the city to remotely change the parking rates. This technology may just be the meter maid’s new best friend, allowing foresight on soon-to-be-expired meters. The new meters will also provide customers access to a real-time parking-availability map, as well as the ability to pay meters by proxy through their cell phones and computers.

Parking

San Francisco resident Chris Marchalleck
using new SF Park pay system at
Fisherman’s Wharf
photo: Iris Rowlee

The SFpark initiative will be testing variable-priced parking, utilizing a supply and demand approach developed by UCLA urban planning professor and parking expert Donald Shoup. Shoup’s theory is that supply and demand should determine the value of parking meter rates.

“I think we can call this the Goldilocks principles of parking prices – if half the spaces are vacant, the price is too high. If all the spaces are full, the price is too low. If about 85 percent of these spaces are full, the price just right,” Shoup says.

This new system will allow SFMTA to change the price of parking throughout the day, the week, and from zone to zone, based on demand. This demand will be determined as the data is gathered.

San Francisco received federal funding for SFpark through an Urban Partnership agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is aimed at combating traffic congestion. San Francisco is one of only four cities picked to receive funding and the Urban Partnership website (www.upa.dot.gov) says, “The Department sought applicants to aggressively use four complementary and synergistic strategies (referred to as the ‘4Ts’) to relieve urban congestion: Tolling, Transit, Telecommuting, and Technology.”

The SFpark initiative is not the only big change hitting the streets of San Francisco. In March, the SFMTA’s board of directors voted to demand that their executive director, Nathaniel Ford, come up with a trial program to extend parking meter enforcement later into the evenings and on Sundays in target neighborhoods, in an effort to help with SFMTA’s staggering $55 million deficit.
Starting in June, “the Chestnut, Union, Cow Hollow area is one of the areas being proposed for just Sunday metering, not evenings. More specifically, 10 in the morning on Sunday until 6 p.m. – like Saturday, just starting an hour later – with four-hour time limits,” says Primus. The other neighborhoods that will have Sunday-metered test zones are the Inner Richmond, West Portal, Hayes Valley, and a section of Downtown. Fisherman’s Wharf will have an evening test zone where meters go until 10 p.m.

Advocates of the change feel it will improve parking convenience and create more car turnover for adjacent businesses. This turnover assumes convenience only for the consumer though, not for residents. Yet, the SFCTA Parking Management Study (2004-2009) says only 15 percent of the customers in the Marina arrive by car.

Shoup’s theory assumes that in congested, high-demand areas, the upwardly adjusted prices will be cost prohibitive to some, thus thinning out traffic. Yet the study also found that “parking availability and convenience are most important, not cost.” How convenient is it to stay in the same parking place all day if you can pay remotely, without ever getting up, even if it costs more?
Critics such as Kathleen Anderson, a board member of the Marina Community Association, worry that the SFpark initiative won’t solve congestion problems and may cause new ones. Anderson points out that a system that will alert drivers to an open parking spot through smart technology may cause people to be less-safe drivers, as they illegally consult with their cell phones while driving and make scurried rushes to beat other drivers out of newly vacated spots.

“SFMTA says it will help, but has no plans to monitor effects on businesses or the community,” says Anderson. She feels that “the MTA is trying to generate revenues off the backs of residents.”
Many business owners feel that the turnover created by having SFpark’s interactive meters and metered Sunday hours would be a good thing for the Chestnut corridor. Art Swanson, local resident and chief of operations of Lightner Property Group, is torn. “The problem is, I have different opinions. From the perspective of a local property manager, I disapprove. It won’t make residents happy and may deter people from wanting to live in the neighborhood.”

Yet, as president of the San Francisco Small Business Network, Swanson feels the change could be beneficial for local businesses. “Even though meters aren’t [currently] running on Sundays, stores and restaurants are still open. The whole reason meters were created was to generate turnover for businesses,” says Swanson.

Swanson also points out, “In San Francisco, meters were created to raise money for parking garages. At some point, the City decided to stop funding parking garages and start funding Muni.” Swanson continues, “It’s not the concept [of the program], it’s the reason why; it’s where the money is going. We all can learn to adjust conceptually. Generally speaking though, people would be more receptive if the money was divided and not all going to Muni. Maybe some of the money can go back into the neighborhood to put in benches, trees, or something to make the community feel good about it,” says Swanson.

The parking guru himself, Donald Shoup, said, “I think returning the meter revenue to the metered neighborhood is the political key to unlocking the public wealth of a city.”

One thing is for sure, this program will definitely unlock some public wealth, but for now, how the community will fare can only be left to hypotheses.