Parking garage ‘ambassadors’ will now walk you to your car

San Francisco this week began offering an ambassador service at all of the city-owned garages for drivers who may feel unsafe walking to their vehicles, especially late at night.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said ambassadors will wear parking uniforms and be located in or near the front office of each garage. Patrons can approach them and request they accompany them to their vehicles inside the garage.

SFMTA officials said the service is available during the regular hours of garage operations. A list of operation hours for each garage can be found online on the SFMTA’s website..

Ted Graff, SFMTA director of Parking and Curb Management, said on the agency’s website:

“It’s a buddy system of sorts. While crime in city garages is uncommon, we hope the ambassador service will make garage patrons feel safer and less vulnerable.”

Car break-ins in city-owned garages have decreased since last year. The SFMTA reported more than 200 vehicle break-ins at garages last year in April by the SFMTA and now that figure is trending down to less than 50 break-ins reported last month.

SFBay previously reported in April that the Police Department has now assigned police officers to patrol parking garages and that the SFMTA is making technological upgrades to each garage, including installing state-of-art cameras that officials said have helped curb the break-ins at garages.

The SFMTA expects to complete the upgrades to all of the garages by 2020.