Anti-car policy: Big bucks for the city

The City of San Francisco has an anti-car policy---disguised officially as a "transit first" policy---that's the flip side of the pro-bike policy in the Bicycle Plan. But the city isn't motivated just by a politically correct ideology: Parking lots and parking tickets are a major source of revenue for the city. 

According to the San Francisco Transportation Fact Sheet, put out by the Municipal Transportation Agency, the city made $71,579,286 from their parking garages and attended parking lots in FY 2002-2005. During that same year, the city made $84,884,659 from issuing 2,050,334 parking tickets. 

Regardless of what comes out of the current scandal about underachieving parking meters, according to the Fact Sheet the city made $24,148,426 off its 23,028 parking meters for a total of $180,612,371 in FY 2004-2005.