A National First: San Francisco Counts Its Parking Spots | Hacker News Reader

A National First: San Francisco Counts Its Parking Spots

good.is

31 pointsniravs23 comments

That's pretty cool.

But I wonder what would happen though if this sort of money was put into improving MUNI instead (rather than cutting budget/service like they did this year). Might even go towards solving the parking problem too.

Video Summary:

San Francisco recently counted all of their parking spaces in preparation for the SFPark system which will dynamically adjust prices based on demand. There are a total of 441,541 parking spaces, 280,000 on street parking spaces, and 25,000 metered spaces.

The new parking system will have electronic parking sensors in each of the spots and will feed this data to an intelligent traffic routing system to direct drivers to the open parking spaces. During peak parking hours the system will increase parking prices to encourage people to run their errands during other times if their schedule is flexible. Also by making the parking data available online it will help people make better transit decisions and possibly take public transit if no parking is available. The goal is to make more land area available for urban living rather and less land wasted on parking.

http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/san-francisco-counts-its-par...

> During peak parking hours the system will increase parking prices to encourage people to run their errands during other times if their schedule is flexible.

Doesn't this mean that people with inflexible schedules (i.e. people who are in lower income brackets) will be charged more?

"Doesn't this mean that people with inflexible schedules (i.e. people who are in lower income brackets) will be charged more?"

If their inflexible schedules coincide with the time during which there are expensive rates, then yes.

Driving is a luxury not a right. Parking should get more expensive to curb demand, lessen traffic congestion on the streets and make it more friendly for other modes of transportation. Public transit, biking, and walking are options to be considered.

Keep in mind that SF is highly gentrified. Lower income people get pushed out to Oakland and to the cities south of San Francisco. Additionally, lower income people have less options when choosing a place to live. Hence, a car might be the only viable option for some.

If you want text instead of video, http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/03/29/san-francisco-first-cit...

I think this video mostly ignores the real reason for the system: the parking control officers know exactly which cars are in violation, and can rush to ticket them before they move. At $53 (or $63) per ticket, this is going to yield millions more in parking ticket revenue.

This city is a big rip off and is greedy. If they adjust the pricing, they need to do it across the board so that some of these garages don't have a license to steal. Personally I think it discourages commerce and freedom for the merchants and citizens. Everyone is for it probably already takes the bus or does not have a car. Everyone should be able to make their own choices without getting ripped off by this greedy city. They are already raising the meters which means a bundle so what they are doing is condoning greed.

It sounds great but can't they get rid of the ugly meters too?

In NYC, there's a box on the block instead. Haven't used one in a while but I think you get a printed receipt. You probably don't even need a box. Everyone can just go to a web page and see the status for the block, including the meter person. Next, RFID in car talks to parking spot? :-)

Meters make great bicycle parking spots :)

You could add RFID to all the new licence plates. Then hire kids to steal the old licence plates off cars. (The second part is optional)

If you can tell me how to secure the printed receipt in a motorcycle, I will agree with you that the "box on the block" idea works better.

Let's also not forget that with the muni-meter, you have to make an extra trip between your vehicle and wherever on the block the meter is to acquire the receipt and put it back inside your car, and also that if the meter is broken you are on the hook to run another few blocks to find another, whereas with the individual meters you got a free spot for two hours.

There are prototype meters in some locations (mostly near the Embarcadero) that use central fareboxes instead of individual meters. They get around the printed receipt problem by having you specify the parking space number when you pay and keeping track of which numbered spaces are paid for instead of issuing a receipt to put in the vehicle.

This isn't a bad way to do it, but then a two wheeled vehicle is in the unpleasant situation of taking up an entire space, or not knowing which spot to pay for if between spaces.

How do you fix this with normal meters though?

Here in Aus I've seen all 3 types - the specify a parking spot ones seem the smartest though.

With individual meters you can usually find a spot between two meters, or on the border of a fire hydrant zone, where other cars cover all the meters and you get a free spot. The nebulous sphere of influence of the per-block meters compels you to pay no matter where on the block you park (even if it isn't clear what spot you're in).

There in Vilnius (and a couple of other bigger cities) you just put a sticker with barcode in the corner of the windshield, register it with SMS and from then on you can pay by texting something like "PV 3 R" — which means parking in Vilnius for three hours in the red zone (prices differ by zones). That's it. If you wish you can get SMS with reminder that your paid time is about to expire.

<i>441,541</i> parking stalls private and public in the 49 square miles and how many registered vehicles? About 500,000 isn't it?

Buy a Fast Pass or learn to juggle.

I wonder how many cars are driving at a given moment.

500,000 cars in what given area? People commute to the city from all over the Bay Area.

470,333 vehicles registered to San Francisco residents according to http://www.sfmta.com/cms/rfact/documents/SFFactSheet2009_Nov...

Did I detect a slight endorsement of drinking and driving in the video?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com