As posted on Gavin Newsom’s facebook wall since the City and County of San Francisco does not seem to accept wall posts and I know how much good it does to send an actual complaint that no one else can read (nothing):
Gavin,
The smart meters currently being piloted in parts of the city are a great idea: 1) I can pay with my credit card eliminating the need to carry pounds of change, 2) Why shouldn’t high demand street parking more closely compete with parking lot prices to help cover costs of public transit, etc., and 3) It makes sense to distribute non-essential public resources according to how much people are willing to pay for them.
But there’s one significant problem with this new program being tested along the Embarcadero. On Thursday, August 6, my partner and I parked amongst many other street-parked cars along the Embarcadero. We had taken the the day off to show our visiting sisters the 49-mile scenic drive, so even though we frequent the area it didn’t cross our minds that the lane was very essential to traffic flow during commute hours. It was 2:50 p.m., and we put 1 hour of time in the meter on our credit card which theoretically covered us until 3:50. It turns out that all the cars parked there get towed after 3:00, so when we returned after a delicious lunch at the Ferry Building, it was definitely a “Dude, Where’s my Car!” moment.
When I tested the meter at that point it would not allow transactions. There were parking restrictions posted in the area (at least some had not been removed by vandals), but the usual signs on the meters clearly stating the hours were absent (the old meters were covered with bags). The question remains, however, since these are “SMART” meters, why on earth would they let us pay for more than 10 minutes of parking time without a warning/error message? The programming is very, very simple. I learned my lesson early on that there’s no use fighting parking illogicality in San Francisco so we’ve paid the $450 to retrieve our vehicle and plan to eat only rice for the next three months, but please fix this! I know it’s mostly tourists parking over there and the city makes a lot of money towing their rental cars for more than they’re worth, but wouldn’t it be more honorable to penalize those who intentionally disregard the rules and are not misled by our dumb “smart” meters?
Filed under: Local Government
