SF Gate’s City Insider was at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors meeting today, where they spoke briefly about the agency’s plan to install new parking meters. Here’s background information about the plan to install 5,000 parking meters in the northeast Mission and other southeastern neighborhoods.
Here is what Joel Ramos of the oversight board had to say about the meter expansion plan, from City Insider:
“From the way that I see it, we are looking at a budget deficit and if we don’t get this hole addressed it’s going to translate to service cuts and that translates into attacks on our most vulnerable population,” Ramos said.
Much of the city’s parking revenue is used to fund Muni transit service, which has been hit with fare increases and service cuts.
Ramos also took some of the most vocal opponents of the meter proposal to task. “I did hear a lot of hyperbole at that meeting,” he said in reference to a packed community forum he attended on Jan. 30 in which members of the public vented their anger and frustration at [SFMTA head Ed] Reiskin and other transportation agency officials in the room.
“I thought that a lot of the tenor that was coming from the community was rude, to put it nicely. I certainly hope that we can move forward in this conversation with a little more respect with one another.
