Parking after COVID: June 2021, the day we applied for Residential and Business Permits:
ENUF History – It started with a fight over parking meters Parking is not the first neighborhood issue that the Artaud community ever got into but, it is the longest running issue we have ever immersed ourselves in. It sort of started around 2012 when the SFMTA plastered signs all over the Eastern neighborhoods claiming parking meters were coming to our streets soon. That was enough to unite the citizens around a battle with the SFMTA that we have more or less won in that there are so far no parking meters in front of our homes yet.
Eastern Neighborhoods United Front (ENUF) was born out of concerns over SFMTA plans to install thousands of parking meters in the North Eastern Neighborhoods. When signs popped up announcing that parking meters were going to to installed all over Potrero Hill, Dogpatch and the Mission District, hundreds of angry citizens showed up at City Hall to protest. Residents and merchants complained about meters in front of their homes and businesses with no notice, discussion or input on their part. Neighborhood groups filed an appeal and the next day the SFMTA withdraw their plans.
Citizens organized a public meeting which was widely attended by Supervisors, SFMTA staff the media, and hundreds of irate residents. Things did not go well for the SFMTA at that meeting and they backtracked from their original plans. At this point they had a foe that was ready to strike back.
Stop SFMTA: ENUF started a petition to Stop SFMTA which put more pressure on the city authorities and gave drivers and car owners a means to direct their anger and personal stories to the city authorities.
Uniting the neighborhoods: SFMTA attempted to divide and conquer by going after one street at a time, but ENUF united all neighborhood residents and merchants and together we were able to convince the Supervisors to limit the expansion of the parking meters in the city, using the one means possible of controlling the SFMTA. They amended the parking meter contract to limit the number of meters purchased. Recently SFMTA gave up enforcement of the Sunday parking meters as well, so two of our demands have so far been more or less met.
ENUF has been credited with starting the fight but now the anger has boiled over to the point that neighborhood groups all over the city are involved. People have become somewhat savvy and SFTMA has blundered so many times it is hard for any city official to say with a straight face that they are functioning as planned. Other city groups reached out to us and some of us got involved in the bigger picture,.
Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods along with others helped fight many of the early battles with the SFMTA and the member groups support each other when possible. It became obvious rather soon that the real reason they wanted to remove our street parking was to push as many of us out as possible to make room for their density plans. Look at SOMA if you want to see where those lead. We are fighting to preserve the quality of life and lifestyles we chose.
ENUF continued to work on a parking plan as suggested by SFMTA. I can’t tell you how many hours were spent on research, organizing, writing, discussion and meetings to keep us where we are now with no parking meters and no limited parking on our streets.
We had three choices:
Do nothing and hope for the best.
Allow SFMTA to install parking meters or limit parking for everyone.
Apply for parking permits. This seemed like the most reasonable route so we took it. That was round 10 years ago maybe. Here is the latest application that includes residents and businesses. blank_rpp_petition_01152019
Since then we have new residents and businesses, different vehicles, and we have gone through a couple of tech booms and busts. The residential parking permits only option seems to have replaced with a new option for business permits so we should be able to accommodate for people. So it seems like it is time to update the details on the application.
The parking threat may be solved this year if we are lucky, but we will have to continue dealing with over-development, gentrification and up-zoning. Stay tuned for the next chapter.
Details on Residential Parking Permits (RPP)
https://www.sfmta.com/permits/residential-parking-permits-rpp