SF residents are the only casualties in ‘war on cars’

By Sally Stephens : sfexaminer – excerpt

280 traffic on a cloudy day by zrants

San Francisco is a transit-first city. Those of us who live here are told we should use Muni to get around. Or ride a bike. Or walk. But above all else, we should not drive our cars.

To reinforce this, city policy makes it easy to remove existing parking spaces — turning curbside parking spots into parklets — and explicitly prevents new developments from providing a parking space for every unit built. Some have called this a “war on cars.”

If you look at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Strategic Plan, however, it turns out that “transit first” includes prioritizing ride-hail vehicles. In essence, The City wants people to get out of their own cars and into other people’s.

There’s no war on cars in San Francisco if the cars are being driven for profit. Those are welcome here — even if the drivers don’t live here, don’t pay taxes here and, often, don’t even know how to get from one place to another in The City.

No, the war on cars is aimed at San Francisco residents.

A recent report released by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority showed that cars from ride-hail companies Uber and Lyft make more than 170,000 trips — driving more than half a million miles — within The City every weekday. Nearly 6,000 ride-hail cars clog the streets during peak commute hours…

San Francisco’s “war on cars” targets residents to give up their cars, while allowing — even encouraging — people from out of town to drive all over our city, as long as they’re doing it for money…(more)

SFMTA is taking our public streets and selling them to THEIR preferred car-shares and other corporate entities. As if Uber and Lyft and the tech buses weren’t enough of a nuisance, the SFMTA has now invited Scoot to park their Scooters and (4-wheeled vehicles, that some of us refer to as cars) pretty much anywhere they want to. There is a hearing on this matter at the Planning Commission this holiday week on Thursday. If you object, let the Planning Commissioners and your supervisors know. Details are here:

Thursday, July 7, 1 PM – agenda
Room 400 Planning –  Transportation Commission
Item 15. 2017-000475PCA CAR-SHARE AND SHARED LIMITED RANGE VEHICLE PARKING REQUIREMENTS [BOARD FILE NO. 170625,  PREVIOUSLY BF 161349] Planning Code Amendment to allow Shared Limited Range Vehicle Parking. (But only Scoot and city-owned vehicles appear to be in on this deal that will hand public property over to city commercial interests.) Private owned vehicles cannot park in Daylight zones. yet, SFMTA’s CHOSEN vehicles may. UNLESS RESIDENTS STOP THIS SCOOT PREFERRED PARKING PROGRAM.