City and progressives are anti-car

Tom Radulovich

It's not just my opinion that the city's progressives are anti-car, not just pro-bike. If that isn't true, why do they always oppose creating any new parking in the city? Note for example that city progs oppose the garage UC Hastings is going to build near the law school on the edge of the Tenderloin. The SF Bicycle Coalition (Andy Thornley), the Sierra Club (Rick Galbreath), and Transportation for a Livable City (Tom Radulovich), are all on record as opposing the 430-space garage. But even the SF Planning Dept. (Dean Macris) and the Dept. of Public Health (Rajiv Bhatia) went on record as being opposed to a garage that would mostly serve the 1500 students, teachers, and staff at Hastings Law School, with some of the spaces being reserved for public use. It's fair to conclude that both city progressives and the City of San Francisco itself are anti-car.

Hastings has a genuine need for parking, as law students, teachers, and staff are in and out of the school at all hours, attending classes and using the law library. Since the school's location is on the edge of the Tenderloin district, students need a safe place to park other than the streets, which are dangerous at night. Even though Hastings is providing more than twice as many parking spaces for bikes than originally planned in the new facility---up from 30 to 65---the Bicycle Coalition still went on record in opposition to the garage.