Amid budget shortfalls, transit officials are considering enforcing parking meters after dark.
Amid budget shortfalls, transit officials are considering enforcing parking meters after dark to bring in new revenue.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors are currently in budget to talks to consider what it should fund over the next two years and how it should pay for it.
Directors at their regular Tuesday meeting first approved reducing towing fees for first time offenders and created a low-income fee — a deal made last week with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.The transit agency though will see a reduction of $3 million to $3.5 million in revenue because of those reduced fees.
The SFMTA already has projected shortfalls of $13.5 million in 2017 and $14.3 million in 2018, according to an updated budget presentation from SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin.
Reiskin included an updated list of possible revenue sources including a discount for Clipper card users, but charing an extra 25 cents to riders to pay who for cash and setting discount fares 50 percent below adult fares instead of the current 66 percent threshold. He’s also proposing to change the youth age from 17 to 18.
An extra 25 cents charged to single-cash users would bring in $3.8 million in 2017 and $3.9 million 2018.
Muni fares would be regularly indexed. All Muni Fast Passes would see a rise in price.
The idea to charge a premium for express routes was not included in the update.
On the spending side, Reiskin suggested for the board to not fund a potential 2 percent increase in Muni service:
“Given some uncertainty about the revenue forecast, I think it would be probably prudent to hold, as much as I would love to continue increasing service forever.”
Director Cheryl Brinkman said transit riders should not be ones paying for current budget shortfalls:
“We do recognize that people having their cars towed, it is a huge hit. I don’t want to balance that hit on the backs of our transit riders.”
Brinkman recommended to enforce parking meters at night on commercial corridors that thrive on nighttime business. She said it was unheard of a city stopping meter enforcement after 6 p.m. in a busy commercial corridor:
“I really do want do see some targeted meter hour extensions show up in this budget especially now that we’ve put ourselves in another $3.5 million behind.”
Director Malcolm Heinicke said he would be behind in looking into the proposal, but said to make the sure the transit agency reaches out to businesses the would be affected by the enforcement.
The board will also consider whether or not to spend some of the transit agency’s rainy day reserve fund on one-time expenses.
This was the last time Resikin presented the budget as an informational item. The board may take action on the budget its April 5 or April 19 meeting. The transit agency must submit a budget to the Board of Supervisors by April 30.
Between now and April 5, the transit agency is holding open houses and a webinar for the public to weigh in on the budget, as previously reported by SFBay.
Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.
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“Director Cheryl Brinkman said transit riders should not be ones paying for current budget shortfalls”
Before Brinkman took her place on the SFMTA board she was involved in an anti-car lobbying group called Livable City. The organization maintained a CAR-FREE message board http://web.archive.org/web/20130516050910/http://livablecity.org/pipermail/carfreeliving_livablecity.org/2006-March/000537.html to “facilitate and promote car-free living in S.F.” Livable City used their tax exempt non-profit status lobbying against the the construction parking garages across the city. http://web.archive.org/web/20040606152053/http://livablecity.org/campaigns/stopexcessiveparking.html
Brinkman then became Chair of the SFMTA Board and several people from the CAR-FREE living message board http://web.archive.org/web/20070729010141/http://livablecity.org/pipermail/carfreeliving_livablecity.org/2005-May/date.html#start were awarded city contracts through the SFMTA to “manage parking”. One of the people on the CAR-FREE living message board was awarded the contract to evaluate the SFpark pilot program. Another was awarded a contract to do traffic studies for the SFMTA, another was awarded with a full time position at the SFMTA,https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/walk-bloustein-bike-bloustein/QsHAlKfhIO8 and someones husband was awarded a contract with the Central Subway. https://savesfmuni.wordpress.com/complaints/
Why is the SFMTA such an anti-car organization? Follow the money, the jobs, and the city contracts back to the people who are profiting from parking meters and trying to push CAR-FREE Living on to the public http://web.archive.org/web/20130516050910/http://livablecity.org/pipermail/carfreeliving_livablecity.org/2006-March/000537.html
This is OUTRAGEOUS! The State of California has a budget of $165 billion with a population of around 38 million. San Francisco only has a population of 850,000 but look at our city budget. State spending is around $4,342 per resident, while SF’s spending is $10,470 per resident.
Parking meter rates have quadrupled since 1992. The meter rates in SF are the second highest in the nation, and the fees and penalties for parking citations are the highest in the country. Also, the revenue of the parking meters and the revenue from traffic citations are not only paying for themselves, but are also subsidizing MUNI as one third (350 Million) of the SFMTAs BILLION DOLLAR budget comes from fines, fees, parking meters, and the SFMTA preying on city residents.
Of course the SFMTA wants to charge for overnight parking! Aside from the outlandish salaries and pensions, employees of the SFMTA also get LOW COST TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED parking under a collective bargaining
agreement. Thats right taxpayers SFMTA city employees pay less than 1/3 of what ordinary taxpayers pay for city owned parking spaces. See excerpt from collective bargaining agreement between San Francisco
Municipal Transit Agency and SEIU Local 1021:
“PARKING FACILITIES
152.TheSFMTA agrees to participate, on behalf of service critical employees at the, in Union/ City discussions regarding parking facilities. For the duration of this Agreement, the monthly rate for basic employee parking
at any SFMTA operated and controlled parking facilities, will not exceed rates in effect as of June 1, 2004 or the price of a MUNI Fast Pass, plus $10, whichever is higher.”Taxpayers pay $500.00 a month to park at City owned garages while SFMTA employees pay only $90.00 a month. Is that what the citys “Transit First” policy is about? Bleeding taxpayers dry to pay the salaries and pensions of city employees?
There is no budget shortfall, it’s a revenue shortfall.
Follow the money! in early 2012 the SFMTA issued a NEW ‘Policies for On-Street Parking Management” document to the public, The document outlined the rules the SFMTA uses to install and enforce parking meters. The SFMTA claimed the document contain *NO NEW POLICIES*.
After an investigation citizens learned that the document introduced all new Policies without outreach, citizen review, or buy in from the public. The most egregious conflict of interest is that the new policy document was also written by the same company who sold parking meters to the city of San Francisco. Thats right Taxpayers! The company that holds the SFpark meter collection and servicing contract created a *NEW* citywide policy document that justifies the installation of new parking meters that THEY MAKE MONEY FROM!
20+ Business and Neighborhood groups have demanded that SFMTA rescind the policy document and examine staff actions. In April 2014 the SFMTA Citizens Advisory Committee passed a motion urging the SFMTA board investigate the conflicts of interest and to date the SFMTA Board has done nothing. Had ENUF? City Supervisors have a hidden power. They can vote themselves authority to review all
SFMTA parking decisions and stop the them from preying on the public.