Several days a week, Edward sets up shop in the middle of the street at 20th and Capp streets, just north of where the city installed bollards a year ago to discourage johns from cruising the blocks from 18th to 22nd streets.
His pop-up car wash is apparently meeting a neighborhood need: Drivers often line up along the block, or leave their cars altogether as they wait their turn for a wash.
Locals appreciate him, Edward said, because they don’t have to travel as far to get their car cleaned. And in the three or four months he has been in business, no one from the city has bothered him.
Similarly, no one from the city has bothered the drivers who illegally park at the four intersections with bollards, or the residents who have placed planters at those intersections. And no one in the San Francisco Fire Department seems worried about the intersections often being blocked by the cars.
Instead, residents of Capp Street seem pleased by how effectively the bollards at 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd streets have worked to rid the street of sex work and cruising clients.
“It’s definitely helped out here,” said David Cuetter, a nearby resident, who agreed that Capp has been quieter and safer, particularly since all the additional obstacles appeared, preventing drivers from breaking and driving over the bollards.
“I like it: It’s cut down a lot on people using Capp as a thoroughfare and going really fast down the street,” Cuetter said. “People would really haul ass down Capp Street.”
The parked cars, planters and car-wash station don’t necessarily bother Cuetter personally, but he said it could be a safety concern in case of emergencies.
Another resident pointed to the irony of how the bollards had once been a point of contention with the fire department as the city went from flimsy barricades to cement barriers before landing on the collapsible steel bollards.
“I remember when the bollards were supposedly a fire-department hazard,” he said, noting that the illegally parked cars often block driveways near the intersections and residents are forced to “play a game of Tetris” to access their driveways, and sometimes wait long periods until the parked cars’ owners return. “These cars make it impossible for us to even get into [our] garages or get out of them.”
Many residents, however, seem pleased with the intended effects of the barriers — sex workers have shifted away from Capp Street.
Cuetter said that driving to his home now involves “a little bit of an inconvenience” as he can only access his block from one side, but said sex workers now gravitate toward surrounding blocks.
The fire department, which was closely involved in discussions last year over the type of bollards the city selected, also seems nonplussed by the new barriers and has been silent on the obstruction of the four intersections. Deputy Chief of Operations Darius Luttropp declined to comment on the bollards’ impacts over the past year.
Police Commissioner Jesús Yáñez noted at a recent commission meeting that Capp Street’s longstanding sex-work activity had been mostly “removed and eliminated,” and asked whether the bollards, installed a year ago, would come down anytime soon.
Police Chief Bill Scott said that some residents prefer the streets being blocked, and that the department had not decided whether to make any changes.
Meanwhile, the sex workers and those seeking their services haven’t gone far; they have — albeit in smaller numbers — shifted to surrounding blocks like 20th Street, South Van Ness Avenue and Shotwell Street. Scott said that police enforcement to deter prostitution in the area is ongoing.
As to the illegal parking, one resident said he has not noticed much of an effort to prevent it.
One truck, often spotted along Capp, has racked up more than $12,000 in unpaid parking tickets, according to MTA records. But very few of those 74 citations appear to be for improper parking at the bollards, and are instead mostly for interfering with street sweeping.
MTA spokesperson Erica Kato did not answer how often double parking or parking more than 18 inches from the curb is enforced on Capp Street.
This weekend, a resident saw that the same truck and another car were towed from a dead-end block of Capp Street. On Sunday, the truck was spotted parked next to the barriers again at 21st Street, with towing numbers written on its windshield. On Monday morning, it was still there.
It’s wild that SFFD made a stink when there were concrete barriers, because of the *grave danger* of blocking its access, and SFMTA went to the effort to install “convertible” bollards to account for SFFD’s complaints, and now neither gives a damn – “Cars blocking the street? Huh, haven’t thought about them.” Another example of our city’s deep distaste for enforcing rules.
How has a car with $12,000 in parking tickets not been impounded? Is this more SFMTA/SFPD blue flu/quiet quitting, or is it actually legal?
I guess this means the rest of us who pay our parking tickets are chumps.
Looks like the FD has thrown up their arms in surrender just like before them the PD and Caltrans (in their respective AORs). Saying, whateves, have it your way. So when heavenforbid a place burns down on the street, they’ll saliently point to their concerns that were thrown by the wayside.
Put up the barriers, drivers park illegally, as drivers do. Street calmed. This is some next level jujitsu sh*t right here. Use drivers against… drivers. My mind is blown and I want it on my block.
Ticket the illegally parked cars, and tow them. That will stop the illegal parking.
The city needs the money
A well-funded vocal minority will always get their way: The rest of us get to put up with more traffic, causing slower less reliable busses. The public transportation in SF is dying a death of a thousand cuts. This externalizes the costs: Make the traffic and less reliable bus service someone else’s problem – the people on the new cul-de-sac street love it, of course. They’re getting the benefit without any of the costs.
Much better to fix this with more frequent and reliable bus service than bringing back the cars.
These barriers do nothing to curtail sex work in the area. They just make it harder for residents to get around the area.
Not true. Do you live here? It’s wayyyyyy better than it was.
Clearly you don’t live in the block because you are unaware how effecitve they have been. Since you don’t live on the block it is you not speeding down it that was an added benefit.
I live on 21st & Capp, since 2011. I strongly disagree with you.
I am 100% in support of the barriers. We now sleep better at night, as the noise has diminished.
Campers,
SF should make a move as bold as our Legalization of Gay Marriage.
We should put the Legalization of the Sex Industry to our 470,000 registered Voters.
Leading D-9 Supervisor Race candidate, Roberto Hernandez agreed with me tonite at Manny’s speaking to my question …
“Absolutely !”
…
“We should model our design after the one in Amsterdam.”
He also agreed with me that we should put whether Voters should elect our SF Police Chief on the Ballot.
I asked both Daniel Lurie and Aaron Peskin if they’d support the Chief thing.
They both had the same answer kinda …
Lurie: “What does Peskin think ?”
Pesking: “What does Lurie think ?”
Legalize Sex Trade and you can take away the barriers and give Capp Street back to the residents !!
h.
One point not mentioned in this article is that, now that many 4-way stop intersections along Capp have become 3-way stop intersections, many drivers no longer stop. I have seen many drivers blow right through the stop signs at intersections where Capp is blocked on one way, 21st & Capp especially. It’s dangerous and likely to hurt someone soon if it has not already.
Perhaps we should change the signs too. But as long as they are there, the rest of us are counting on drivers to follow them.
The bollards are not at fault for this issue. I’m agnostic on, or even for, bollards as long as emergency services are OK with them. (They have ABSOLUTELY been effective in shifting prostitution back to Shotwell, not the ultimate goal but still perhaps better than NEVER inconveniencing this illegal business.)
Drivers are at fault. And the city is at fault (as for the parking issue mentioned in this article) for allowing bad driving mostly un-checked.
That is a very interesting observation that I, whom walk my dog at least twice a day, at the intersection of 21st & Capp, have yet to witness. I stop to cross the street & drivers stop for me.
i owned a building at 21st and capp, a 6 unit building for 30 years. I h ad to sell and get out once and for all to keep my sanity. I had good tenants but once I rented to section 8 courtesy of catholic services, my tenants moved out. the prostitution using my basement illegally was nothing but horror. I have no sympathy for sex workers , their addicts and the enablers at city hall. Put them on Angel Island and let them live off the land.
another attack on the poor by attaching your resentments to holders of housing vouchers and blaming a charity for your decision to rent to them.
then add in xenophobia towards sex workers and those suffering from addiction with a little scribe of unsubstantiated accusations to suit the taste of those foot solders in the war on the poor.
Landlords should be REQUIRED to provide parking for every resident . We should not need to provide proof of drivers license or insurance . Wastes tons of time looking for parking . Also it polluted the environment circling the block . Landlords should have to build parking or stackers or maybe give out parking vouchers to residents if they can’t provide parking . Enough is enough . Rents to go for what you get .
Ridiculous, Ricardo. I have lived in the Mission for years with no car, and get around just fine. Maybe you need to try walking a bit.
Or just use your feet, a bike, a bus, a train, etc (yes, elderly, disabled, men, women, children, and even some pets can use all of the aforementioned). Parking requirements have encouraged an overabundance of cars for which there is little reason or justification in a dense, well-connected city like ours. If anything, the amount of cars this city allows on its streets is gross and damaging.
😂
Agreed. Parking should be provided to ALL renters & ALL renters should pay SF market rate rents