A Position Paper by Bryan Costales

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Limit Traffic In San Francisco City’s Core

San Francisco City's core is currentlyover crowded with automobiles,especially during commute hours. Thecore is roughly all of south of Market toDivision Street, and north of Marketbordered by Van Ness Avenue andCalifornia Street. The traffic situationinside this core is bad and growingworse by the month.

One proposal to lessen this over-crowding is to adopt the Londonapproach which charges a special feefor entry into the city core.

I propose a different approach. Treatparking spaces as an asset and limitaccess to the core by limiting access toparking in the core.

Parking Smart-Cards

One way to limit parking is to useparking smart-cards in place of cash. Allpublic parking, and some private (butpublicly available) parking spacesshould require use of a parking-smart-card to park.

Parking meters and parking lots shouldno longer accept cash. When a driverparks at a meter, he/she swipes ortouches a card to the parking meter.The meter registers that the parkingplace is in-use and shows the maximumtime available at an un-fined rate, saytwo hours at $10/hour. It also shows thefine you will pay if parked 1, 2, 3 ormore hours over meter limit.

• $10/hour 10 minute increments, 2 hourslimit, $2 minimum

• plus $40 fine for the first hour over limit,rounded up

• plus $80 fine for the second hour overlimit, rounded up

• plus $160 fine for the third hour overlimit, rounded up

• plus Tow Away during forth hour overlimit

Any car parked at a meter past themaximum fine interval, may be towed inaddition to the fine. Any car parked at ameter which is not activated is subjectto immediate tow-away. A minimum feeprevents frivolous use of smart-cards.

The fine and parking fee areautomatically deducted from the smartcard when:

• The driver swipes/touches the meter tosay he/she is finished and is leaving.

• A new driver swipes/touches the meterwhen first parking, causing the priorparking user to be charged through thattime.

• Any given smart-card may not be usedtwice in sequence to park at any givenparking space.

To park a smart-card must containenough money to cover the currentlongest interval of un-fined parking plusmaximum fine.

Parking lots will need to be equippedwith an individual meter per parkingspaces.

Exceptions• Taxis, delivery, disabled person, repair,

fire, and police vehicles would continueto use special zones as before.

• A resident with off-street private residen-tial parking would have that parkingspace exempted.

• Residents with a residential parking per-mit in the designated residential-parkinginside the core area must have non-metered street parking available.

opyright 2010 Bryan Costales Page 1

A Position Paper by Bryan Costales

C

Limit Traffic In San Francisco City’s Core

• Some parking smart-cards would haveto be reserved for low income driverswho need to park in the core as part ofemployment --where such smart-cardsmay allow for subsidized or discountedrates.

• Preference for smart-cards should begiven to locally owned businesses andlocal consultants and local individualprofessionals.

Meters can optionally deactivate at 6:00or 7:00 p.m as they do now, so thatanyone may park free during theevening and night hours. A city-wideresidential parking smart-card mayeventually be issued that will allow onlyresidents to park free at meters in theevenings, while non-residents must pay.

Regulation of access to the core wouldthereafter be by means of regulation ofaccess to parking-smart-cards.

Implementation

Implementation could be in phases. Thefirst meters could accept either cash ora smart-card. Then lots could beequipped with dual-use meters andfare-collection employees replaced withmeter-enforcement and tow-awaypersonnel. Lastly, meters would havethe cash alternative payment formremoved.

Advantages/Disadvantages

One advantage to smart-card parkingmeters is that they self-collect fines forover-time parking. Other than the needto patrol for potential tow-awayviolators, the cost of enforcement wouldbe reduced.

Another advantage to smart-cardparking meters is that they can be

networked together so that they may beconveniently, centrally monitored andcontrolled. Central control allows thecash balance of the smart-card to bemaintained centrally rather than on thecard. Credit can replace cash balancesand monthly invoices can be used forcredit-worthy businesses. Parking coststo change dynamically over time or asdemand rises, such as during events.Meters can also be turned into no-parking zones when required as forparades, construction, and citizendemonstrations.

On disadvantage to smart-card parkingis that it is possible for the liable personto be neither the driver nor the owner ofthe vehicle. This may complicate thelegality of towing the vehicle.

Questions

Will the cost of installing smart-cardmeters be offset by the income derivedfrom them.

Is regulation of parking sufficient tosuppress over crowding of roads in thecity core.

Supply and Demand

If demand exceeds supply, parkingsmart-cards can either be distributedlottery style, or the price increased untilthe demand aligns with the supply.However the motivating factor shouldnot be maximization of income, rather itshould be reduction of automotivecrowding of the core.

Smart-card parking allows the City tomaintain at its fingertips an up-to-the-minute inventory of its parking placeassets and their worth.

opyright 2010 Bryan Costales Page 2