Ballot Measure "To Restore SF's Transportation Balance" Proposed

A proposed ballot measure entitled "Restoring Transportation Balance in San Francisco" has been submitted to San Francisco's Department of Elections for processing.

From the draft summary . . . :

The Board of Supervisors created a Transit First policy in 1973. In 1999, the SFMTA was created. Its unelected board was granted exclusive authority to dictate the City’s transportation policies. Since then, the Transit First policy has morphed into one that favors public transportation and bicycles, to the exclusion of any other mode of transportation. Nevertheless, a majority of San Franciscans want the automobile option for its convenience, personal safety, and freedom of movement.
The City has eliminated thousands of off-street and on-street parking spaces through new construction and the creation of new bike lanes. The City also removed the requirement that one parking space be created for each new residential unit constructed. To make matters worse, the SFMTA has not constructed a single new parking garage since the 1990s. These out-of-balance policies have contributed to a severe shortage of parking spaces in the City.
If passed, the measure would eliminate the operation of parking meters in San Francisco on holidays, Sundays, and outside the hours of 9:00am to 6:00pm and would freeze the fees for meters, garages, tickets and parking permits for five years. In addition, the introduction of new meters or variable meter pricing into neighborhoods where they currently do not exist would only be allowed "upon petition by the majority of the affected household and merchants."

The measure also calls for traffic laws to be "enforced equally for everyone," for proposed re-engineering of traffic flows to achieve "smoother-flowing streets," and for SFMTA monies to be earmarked for the construction and operation of new neighborhood parking garages.

Click to expand...

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/...easure_proposed_to_restore_the_transport.html

At last! The backlash has begun.

Over the last few years major arterial streets have been made virtually impassable by taking away traffic lanes in favor of bike lanes and failure to enforce laws against double parking, illegal left turns and more.

The proposed measure says 78% of San Franciscans own or lease cars. I don't know if that's true or not--I do neither but I drive when necessary, courtesy of Zipcar. What is true, I'm sure, is that the number who use a bike a primary mode of getting around the city are in the thousands while the number who use a car or motorcycle are in the hundreds of thousands. And I'm also sure there are many who are too old or too disabled to ever use a bike for more than occasional recreation. So turning the streets over to bike riders the way San Francisco has been doing makes little or no sense and is simply a response to the organized political power and threats of the "Bicycle Coalition" and its ilk.