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Pursuant to Charter, Sections 2.103 and 3.100(7), and Administrative Code, Section 2.11, the Mayor shall answer the following eligible question submitted from the Supervisor representing District 8. The Mayor may address the Board initially for up to five minutes. Discussion shall not exceed five minutes per Supervisor.
1. Mr. Mayor, we recently held a hearing at the Land Use and Economic Development Committee on the issue of illegal double parking in San Francisco - including its impacts on traffic, Muni, cycling, and pedestrians - and the City’s enforcement policies and practices. While some might say that double parking is an innocent infraction, it can create traffic jams and block Muni. On our light rail vehicle lines, a single double parker can effectively shut down the line, since LRVs cannot swerve off of their tracks to get around the double parker. Moreover, double parking often occurs in bike lanes, causing cyclists to have to swerve into traffic, and double parking near crosswalks reduces pedestrian safety by blocking sight lines. While double parking is at times appropriate - for example a delivery truck that has no other option or a paratransit vehicle dropping off its passengers - double parking in San Francisco has become the wild west. All sorts of vehicles - taxis, private autos, delivery trucks - seem to park in the middle of the street whenever they want and even when there is space to pull over.
At the hearing, we heard from the Municipal Transportation Agency and the Police Department that double parking enforcement outside of the downtown core is infrequent. For example, on the entirety of 16th Street - which goes through multiple dense commercial areas - on average one double parking citation is issued every other day. On the entirety of Castro and Divisadero Streets, on average one citation is issued each day. At the same time that very few double parking citations are issued outside of the downtown core, MTA is engaging in periodic saturation ticketing in our neighborhoods for minor infractions like not curbing wheels on a slight grade or vehicle protruding an inch onto a sidewalk from a driveway. In other words, MTA is engaging in significant enforcement of minor infractions while not enforcing an infraction - double parking - that has serious impacts in our neighborhoods.
Mr. Mayor, what will you do to ensure that double parking enforcement is a priority where it impacts transit riders, pedestrians, and cyclists? What specific goals and metrics do you propose we establish to ensure that the most impactful double parking behavior becomes an enforcement priority for the MTA and the Police Department? Will your office agree to report back in a year on the city’s stepped up enforcement efforts against double parking?
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