According to The New York Times, San Franciscans have been shocked (shocked I tell you) by vicious assaults "related to finding places to park, including an attack in which a young man was killed trying to defend a spot he had found." Victims (other than the English language) include SF parking control officers (PCO). The don't call them meter maids say the public abuse is insoportable.For example, a motorist [allegedly] punched a parking control officer straight through the window of his Geo Metro. "Just driving down the street, you get yelled at," claims Lawanna Preston. The staff director for the union representing the PCOs says her co-workers "can't even eat lunch with that uniform on, because people approach them and curse at them." Blogger John Van Horn reports that paranoia strikes deep in the heart of the city. "I've noticed lately watching some of the citation writers; they don't get very far away from their vehicles. They want to be able to get away." Rather than mounting some kind of charm offensive, SF officials are looking at mounting cameras on parking officers' vehicles to catch and prosecute anyone who dares challenge the PCO's authority commits an assault.
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The worst part of SF parking is the random streetsweeper schedule sweepstakes bullshit. Every block gets swept on a different day, and woe betide the idiot who assumes that other cars parked on the block means he doesn’t have to hunt down the sign that tells him which day the sweeper comes. Do I sound bitter? Naw, I love paying for 20 minutes of parking and then paying for an hour of impound with a bracing walk through the Tenderloin and SOMA in between. Love it.
It’s only a matter of time that this happens in philadelphia too, where the philadelphia justice league of parking professionals meter-morons are already getting scoffed at thanks to the parking meter documentary.
Indeed. Why would you try to stop the problem when you can just catch people in the act?
tony-e30: I think you mean, “Why solve a problem when you’re making a metric sh*tload of money by not solving it?”
I used to pay at least $250 a month in parking tickets when I lived in San Francisco.
Why?
If I got home from work after 7:00 pm there was no where to park, so I had to go on the sidewalk. Along with dozens of my neighbors. And this was over ten years ago.
It’s worse than you think.
I was recently in SF, and the parking situation made Boston and parts of manhattan look easy.
Is there any greater proof that street parking is far too cheap?
As a native 609er Bluebrat, the solution is simple. Since I might need to park in a ‘parking spot deficient’ section of Philly about once a month, I simply bought the annual park anywhere you God-damn well please pass. Price varies (unless you park in Center City or South Street, where the Justice League of Philadelphia Parking Enforcement Agents roam), but you just suck it up and pay the $20 fine each time you park in Philly. It’s not much more than parking in a garage and it’s more convenient (and probably safer) to boot.
Or since Philly actively doesn’t want my money spent in South Street or Center City, I’ll just stay in Jersey.
you just suck it up and pay the $20 fine each time you park in Philly. It’s not much more than parking in a garage and it’s more convenient (and probably safer) to boot.
I don’t know about Philly, but that wouldn’t work in SF. The impound fee to get your car back after parking illegally would be well in excess of $200. $20 would be cheaper than any parking garage I’ve used in SF for more than a couple of hours.
$20 parking fine in Philadelphia? Lucky you.
I’ve paid $50 twice here in Chicago.
I think it was $35 in San Francisco, where I have also payed a fair share in my years there.
I had a friend with his Suzuki bike impounded for parking in a tow zone during evening rush in SF. I think it cost him $275 to get it back the next day. They charge you a tow fee, a ticket, plus a per-day “storage fee”.
Parking in north beach is terrible. I used to drive around 30-45 minutes sometimes looking for a freakin spot. And I drive a Miata….
“vicious assaults ‘related to finding places to park’, … Victims … include SF parking control officers.”
Where is Dirty Harry when we need him? Don’t bother with tickets, just ask “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
Don’t forget about those infamous unmarked “hidden driveways” that look like fences.
Is it terrorism to hound the meter maids until they quit? Or freedom fighting?
As an aside, he use of [i]insupportable[/i] is probably coming from a Spanish speaker. ‘Insoportable’ is how we usually say ‘intolerable.’
I can’t imagine a more screwed up place in the US than San Fran. Now that they outlawed guns themeter maids should feel a whole lot safer. That was a joke.
LOL…
I’ve successfully parked in SF on the street on three different occasions.
Mind you, it took a while, and those hills are ridiculous, but still, I didn’t know it was that bad.
I guess next time, I’ll simply park at my hotel in San Mateo and just taxi up.
I drove around SF a couple months ago. Didn’t find parking that bad, I mean comparable to Manhattan where I live. I managed to find a metered spot everywhere I went, but I’m used to hunting down and making sense of inscrutable parking signs. Actually I really enjoyed driving around the city. If you live there I imagine you would need your own garage, or rent a monthly space, much like Manhattan. At least public transportation there is decent.
carlisimo: As an aside, the use of “insupportable” is probably coming from a Spanish speaker. ‘Insoportable’ is how we usually say ‘intolerable.’
Thanks for the explanation. :-)
TTAC readers’ knowledge, on a wide variety of subjects, continues to impress.
I still have $2800 in outstanding parking tickets “owed” to Washington DC.
Just try and collect ’em. They link them to license plates. They’re not on my credit report because, as I found out – if you change your license plate (free for Virginia residents) the mail stops coming.