City's income from parking: $170,767,615
As a supplement to the previous post, according to the MTA's Transportation Fact Sheet of November, 2009, here's what the city makes from parking meters, parking lots/garages, and from permits:
Revenue from parking meters for FY 2008-2009: $32,468,579, up $2,402,874 from last year.
Revenue from the city's "off-street" parking lots and garages: $38,279,305, down $4,923,404 from last year.
Revenue from the city's residential permit parking program for FY 2007/2008: $7,099,513, which is up $1,350,876 from the previous year.
Revenue from parking tickets for FY2007/2008: $92,920,218, which is up $3,827,015 from FY 2006/2007.
Total city income from parking fees, parking meters, the residential permit program, and parking tickets: $170,767,615!
The city is doing pretty well at extracting money from all the folks who drive "death monsters" in San Francisco.
Labels: Anti-Car, City Government, Muni, Parking
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:41 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
When parking, don't forget to "curb your wheels". This seems to be an infraction that's only ticketed in recessions when the city needs more money.
Sort of a drop in the bucket compared to the outrageous $6+ Billion city/county budget.
A big drop in a big bucket.
It's an even bigger drop in MTA's bucket. When you look at MTA's budget posted online, you learn that the General Fund Transfer to MTA in fiscal year 2008/2009 was $176 million. The parking lot and parking ticket revenue almost covers that in a budget of $741 million.
Apparently not enough. MUNI is proposing cuts to EVERY line in the system and another systemwide fare increase.
Shouldn't they have to do an EIR? Seems like this would produce a "signifigant unavoidable delay" for all MUNI customers.
It's not a new project, Murph. The point I was making is that the parking and ticket money is a significant part of MTA's budget.
conundrum Rob. If they don't figure out how to get more money for MUNI, they will cut the hell out of it. The prevailing wisdom coming from ridership isn't "I'll just drive" - parking is still $20+ a day downtown, out of range for most. The answer is "guess I'll get a bike..."
Im Sorry, but your argument on bikes is ridiculous in the extreme.
Suggesting that bikes cause more cars to drive more slowly causing pollution ignores 3 basic facts.
Firstly, and most obviously the argument that bikes (the ones putting out no polution), hold up cars (the ones producing pollution), thus causing more pollution, is analogus to the crazed gunman, claiming the reason that he killed so many people is not because he was shooting at them, but rather, because they got in the way of the bullets. Surely a mad hypothesis.
Secondly, the idea that cars will always be there as a matter of fact, is rather short sighted. On this point countries such as Denmark, and the Netherlands, have cities with as much bicycle traffic if not more then as cars, and furthermore, less pollution as a result. If you want to reduce pollution reduce the number of cars, the cause of the pollution.
Thirdly, the idea of building more roads to free up traffic, or not putting in bike paths, is analogus to the idea of an obese person who is getting more obese attempting to solve their obesity, by buying ca bigger belt, so their gut will fit in. The problem is their obesity, not their belt, the same as the problem is the number of cars not the number of roads. If you allow more lanes, more roads etc, then all that will happen is that you will have more cars to fill them. One more bicycle is also one less car.
On to another point. Your posts about the city gaining money through parking fees, ignores the real cost of a car culture. The medical cost of obesity, and a sedentry lifestyle. The cost of building the roads, which in a typical city because of the obsession with cars use up more than one third of the space of the city, which could be devoted to people.
Again, if you ever watch that pro cycling show "top gear" (note sarcasm), you will see that it is cars that hold up bikes in big cities. Just look for "top gear race across london", and you will see that in a commute across london where 1 person rode a bicycle, one person drove a car, one person took a boat along the Thames river, and one person travelled by public transport, the bike won, the boat came second, public transport was third and the CAR that most sacred of forms of transport came STONE DEAD LAST, by 15 minutes, (by a long way).
Additionally by imposing a congestion charge on anyone considering driving into the city will have a better effect, and that is to reduce the number of cars, the real cause of the pollution, as well as gaining money for the government.
My "argument on bikes"? This post is about the city's revenue from parking and doesn't even mention bikes.
Your "argument on bikes," on the other hand, is uninformed, the same tired arguments I've been getting from you bike people ever since the injunction on the Bicycle Plan way back in 2006.
If you take away a traffic lane on busy city streets to make bike lanes, you're going to make traffic worse on those streets for cars, trucks, buses, and emergency vehicles. The EIR on the Bicycle Plan confirmed this basic reality.
Cars are here to stay, as are trucks---all our goods are delivered by trucks---buses, taxis, police cars, ambulances, etc.
Furthermore, cars and other motor vehicles are now transitioning to less polluting technology via hybrids and electric cars.
No one is talking about building more roads in SF, since it's a small city geographically and simply doesn't have the space, even if anyone wanted to. The issue is how best to use the street space we have. If the city continues to make it difficult and expensive to drive here, it's going to damage our economy, which depends on that kind of mobility.
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