Parking Enforcement, Please!

The Bay Guardian's Politics Blog has a piece on the MTA's lax attitude toward parking enforcement, specifically the blind eye they famously turn toward people who double park on Sundays. Ostensibly, these people are going to church, so can't be law-breakers and shouldn't be ticketed. That's the attitude that the city has shown for decades. They even created special parking lot for them in the middle of Valencia Street (which will be eliminated eventually under the new Valencia Street design).

The MTA's lack of enthusiasm for imposing costs on driving and enforcing those costs is becoming famous for an institution bound by City Charter to dillegently "seek to develop new sources of funding for the Agency's operations." A City Charter that, not incidentally, also requires that "Parking policies for areas well served by public transit shall be designed to encourage travel by public transit and alternative transportation."

When it was discovered a couple years ago that DPT was collecting a fraction of the money that parking meters should be bringing in, former D1 Supe Jake McGoldrick uttered one of my favorite quotes on the topic.

Heck, if we got it up to a 50 percent collection rate, we could offer free massages on the buses -Jake McGoldrick

And there's a lot of truth to that. If the MTA made even just incremental improvements in its parking enforcement, it would see millions in new revenue. That's money that could prevent your bus stop from disappearing - or your entire bus line! Or could have prevented your Fast Pass from costing $60.00 ($70.00 if you want to use BART in the city).

But that doesn't seem to be something the MTA thinks is worth its while. (Oh look, Nat Ford's Facebook page...)