San Francisco will be testing a system that uses 4″ square plastic sensors embedded in the street to report the location of empty spaces to drivers, either via signs in the streets or direct to their mobile phones. Cars circling around looking for spaces (which, as anybody who has tried to park in SF knows, is common) contributes significantly to the carbon dioxide emissions, reduces the local air quality and frustrates drivers.

This new system should help reduce the time circling looking for a space when there are some nearby, but is it really the best solution? And how many cars will be homing in on that recently freed up space as soon as the system reports it?

More Spaces
One simple thing that might help would be to simply change the way people park. Today, most of the street parking in San Francisco is parallel to the traffic flow, and many of the roads are several lanes wide. Reducing the width and having cars park at an angle; instead would increase the number of spaces available in the city dramatically.

Another thing that might help would be to reduce the rates for short stays in parking garages to below the equivalent time at a meter. I know many people who won’t go into parking structures because they think that they’re more expensive than meters (personally, I’d rather pay to avoid the hassle of the antiquated parking meter system, not to mention complex restrictions, that SF has), preferring to drive around in circles waiting for somebody to vacate a street space instead.

Less Cars
Another great way to reduce this problem would be to make it really convenient for people to use other forms of transit to get into the city, and back home. The options for getting into SF and moving around once there are far from appealing to most people with cars today, and until that changes they’re not going to switch.

BART is perhaps the worst, and charging as much as $5 to park your car at a station hardly encourages people to use it instead of driving. Not only should parking be free, but since it has such a limited number of stops in each city it passes through, getting to and from the nearest station on the local buses should also be free – something the Alameda/Oakland ferry service manages already, providing commuters with free transfers on both AC Transit and the SF Muni. If BART needs to subsidize its ticket prices, they should look at what other similar train systems around the world do and provide food, drink and newspaper/magazine concessions on the platforms, and even on the trains. A good cleaning crew will take care of the occasional spill.

The ferries aren’t perfect either though, with the last boat being too early for most people to enjoy dinner in the city, or go to an event (other than a ballgame, where they do operate a special service to take people home afterwards, directly from the ballpark). A later service would encourage those who work irregular hours, or go to evening events in the city to use them rather than driving.

To get back to parking, how about making the parking rates in parking structures vary based on the number of people in the car? The more people in the car, the cheaper it is to park. That would encourage people to car pool for their shopping trips.

Congestion Charges
The worst possible solution to this problem though is a tax on motorists who drive into the city. If there is no practical alternative for people to get into the city, then what can they do? Either they pay the extra tax, or they just don’t come in at all (which has a negative impact on the economy of the city). They’re already paying for parking at outrageous rates, and that hasn’t deterred many, so why would an additional charge work any better?

It is far better to encourage people to make the decision on their own by making the alternatives appealing. The bay area transit systems in particular are a mess. If the bay area wants to learn anything from places like London, they should take a look at how simple the one day travel card system makes it for people to get into the city and travel around once there, with a single reasonably priced ticket providing travel in and out of the city, and then unlimited use of buses and trains once there.

[Via CleanTechnica.]

Tags: ac transit, bart, congestion charge, ferry, london, muni, parking, san francisco, transit

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