By Steven T. Jones
The politics of parking in San Francisco has always been intensively visceral, particularly among those who assert a right to park their cars on public property at little or no cost (and who often have a hard time finding a spot). So yesterday’s San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency hearing on its proposal to extend parking meter hours was bound to get heated.
MTA chief Nat Ford anticipated the high emotions to come when he said in his introductory remarks, “It’s not easy to find parking in San Francisco, and it’s not easy to talk about parking in San Francisco…We know this study is creating a lot of discussion and feedback from elected officials and the general public.”
And just as predicted, representatives from the business community, landlords, westside residents, and other conservative interests decried the parking proposal as an unfair tax on motorists and an unnecessary intrusion of government do-gooders.
But the real surprise of the hearing was the angry opposition from a handful of leftists – self-described socialists, poor students, and other young members of the anti-war ANSWER Coalition – who blasted the proposal as a tax on working class motorists and called for the city to tax the rich and big corporations instead.