Thursday, January 5, 2012

Observations on Parking Meters at SF Main Train Station

Parking meters may come to parts of Potrero Hill,  and likely around the 22nd St train station.
A draft of the plan is here:



Some observations I've noted around the 4th & Townsend train station.


In the past, I've seen the parking around the 4th & Townsend train station was completely filled with many vehicles in almost abandoned state .  So in this case I would consider meters are not necessarily a bad thing.  Perhaps if they were managed well, people would carpool to the train station, then take the train for their commute.

Parking meters have been added.   A metered car can get a 9 hour max (which is good if you take the train to work day).

However there are now hundreds of spaces available. Why the 100s of spaces?  I checked the price at 11am yesterday the price was $3.00 an hour.  Calculating this could be a $27 dollar increase per day commute, this only encourages people to drive to work rather than take Cal-Train.  This seems like it defeats the whole purpose of the Cal-Train. 

SFMTA representatives have stated their goal is to always have 1 empty space on a block.  It seems like they are failing with the 4th & Townsend main train station area.   

SFMTA should encourage people to take mass transit such as Cal-Train. And the price for meters around the train stations should start at 25 cents hour,  not $3 hour.  

Perhaps more parking (with reasonably priced meters) should be made available around the train stations, including the 22nd Street train station, which now seems to have parking for big-rig trucks, and other industrial projects instead of commuter parking. 

SFMTA can still adjust, perhaps something is already in the works, but until they prove themselves, can we can trust them to manage parking in Dog Patch & Potrero Hill?






Hundreds of empty train station parking spaces. Hundreds of cars now on the road?




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