Posted on 01/06/2007 10:48:50 PM PST by george76
It bears the hallmarks of a classic urban scourge: back-channel sales, assaults on enforcement officials and even death.
It is the price of parking in San Francisco.
Burdened with one of the densest downtowns in the country and a Californian love for moving vehicles, San Franciscans have been shocked in recent months by crimes related to finding places to park, including an attack in September in which a young man was killed trying to defend a spot he had found.
More recently, the victims have been parking control officers — do not call them meter maids — who suffered four attacks in late November, and two officers went to a hospital.
Over all, 2006 was a dangerous year for those hardy souls handing out tickets here, with 28 attacks, up from 17 in 2005.
The officers are city employees but not in the Police Department.
“They can’t even eat lunch with that uniform on, because people approach them and curse at them,” ...
Many local planners say the lack of parking is in part an unfortunate byproduct of the city’s popularity.
“Any city that is worth visiting is going to have a terrible parking problem,”...
“If you don’t want it to be Disneyland or Houston, you’re going to be experiencing a parking shortage.”
San Francisco issues 1.9 million parking citations and brings in more than $40 million a year ...
Private citizens have also gotten into the act, selling or trading spaces on Web sites like Craigslist, where a prime spot can bring in thousands of dollars a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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The scary part is that Nancy Pelosi wakes up every morning thinking that people in SanFran are normal...
Another reason to be glad I don't live in San Francisco. As if I needed one.
The parking problem in that town is largely the result of a thoroughly corrupt process for approval of new high-rise developments. I know. I have friends who are right in the middle of it.
Amen, bro. Now there's some guy who wants to put the third-tallest building in the U.S. on 1st Street across from the Transbay Terminal. It's absolutely insane!
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelo$i's big feather in her cap is sending a half-billion porcine smackers to S.F. from the Feds to build a Muni light rail line that goes from Chinatown through an underground tunnel to Bay View/Hunter's Point. Funny how nobody knew we needed something like that until she hauled home the pork. And what a boon that will be when the 49ers build their new stadi...uh, I mean, if they build it in the city.
Remember how bad we thought it was back in the 70s during DiFi's "Manhattanization" of SF? The endless BART cost over-runs? That was nothing compared to what's going on now. The games they're playing with code requirements for non-tandem off-street parking in new high-rises? Pure insanity. Building inspection is also shot through with corruption. Just wait till the next big quake hits. Oh, brother.
Her husband ''just happens'' to own a big chunk of land which used to belong to the Federal Government (us taxpayers): Hunters Point Naval Shipyards.
Her protégé, Gavin Newsom, current Mayor of San Francisco, is trying to strike up a deal where the San Francisco 49ers will get that land and stay in the city, rather than moving to Santa Clara and building a new stadium down there.
But there seems to be some problem with the Naval shipyard being a Superfund cleanup site.
Stand by for developments as the blinkless wonder simultaneously cleans up corruption in the Senate, and finds a way around this ''Inconvenient Truth.''
Thanks for the great post!
Nancy Pelosi, her commitment to organized labor essentially ends when it comes to her own businesses. Nancy Pelosi and her husband own a Napa Valley vineyard...
They grow very expensive grapes for very expensive wines, and they don’t use members of the United Farm Workers to pick their grapes.
This winner of the Cesar Chavez award hires only non-union contractors.
Nancy Pelosi and her husband also own a chain of restaurants and a hotel in Napa Valley, California.
Despite her public commitment to the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, you better not join that union and work for the Pelosi's, because you will end up getting fired.
She sounds like the very Queen of Hypocrisy. I wonder why this hasn't been more widely publicized?
The old media covers up for her and for her friends.
As long as they say the PC stuff...the media is happy to let her do the opposite.
There is more, too.
Remember her golf course ?
San Francisco is a cess pool... it truly is.
Pretty enough to look at from far away, but you get into the city and its a dump.
Vagrants everywhere... smell of urine overpowering
Nearly every building tagged with graphiti...
Druggies EVERYWHERE...
Light in the loafers crowd can have it.
Many parents with kids are fleeing the city.
Now the teacher's union is complaining that the school boards might close down some of the nearly empty school buildings.
I did the bay area thing in 2000/01.. Fortunately I lived and worked in Sunnyvale, so I didn't have to deal with the city crap too much.
Did have to go to the city enough though that I concluded there is no way anyone who gives a damn about their family and childrens well being could possibly live there.
Walk down the street and find sex shops with their doors wide open, vagrants literally owning the bus vestibules (no kidding, filled every inch, to the ceiling with garbage bags of some homeless person)... Pan Handlers everhwhere, stench of urine insane out of EVERY single alley... graphiti on every single building...
And that's not the Castro folks, thats just every single street.
The Castro you get assaulted by nudity on public display in every window of nearly every store... not the remotest attempt at public decorum or decency.
Anyone who buys into the complete BS argument that homosexuality, particular male homosexuality is not a mental disorder, and they are just like the rest of us, need only walk through the Castro district one time and see how completely wrong they are.
Mardi Gras at its peak is nowhere near Castro on a typical day in terms of lewdness and debauchery.
The pillow biters can have it... frankly if it wasn't for the fact they get tax money from the port, the city would have died a long time ago.... it will continue to lose population.... but as long as the port is operating it can basically do whatever it wants.
When I was in the Bay Area, I had a simple solution to the parking problem in San Francisco.
I never went there!
Notice the sign in the middle. I was waiting form my wife at costco and sitting in a handicapped stall. I was backed in and had no front plate. One customer walking by looked at my car, walked around to the back and noticed I did not have a handicapped plate and then tapped on my side window.
I turned and rolled down the window. He said "handicapped"? I said I didn't understand the question. He then asked if I had a permit to park in a handicapped space. I said no. He said I couldn't park there.
I said, I'm not parked. I'm stopped.
Side note, there were four empty handicapped spaces next to me. I told him that if they filled up I would move...
Yup. They have concrete in SF. They have the ability to build parking garages...
I like your " simple solution to the parking problem in San Francisco. "
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