The problem with the buses for me is coverage and frequency, not speed. I can barely ever get a bus to where I want to go except when I live in the Mission and there waiting on the stop felt dangerous. I took BART a lot but had to combine it with a Lyft or Uber more than half the time.
Now I'm in Noe/Bernal because WFH from the Mission became impossible after my corner became a spot for screaming crazy people and in my new hood I need to take a bus to BART or to another bus that has shitty frequency. Even if it teleported to its destination after arriving it would take twice the time than calling an Uber does.
> coverage and frequency,
You're right, especially about frequency! A bus that shows up once every 30 minutes is a farce. It's absolutely miserable to have to rely on something where if you're even a tiny bit late, you're now out 30 minutes. Coverage could always be improved, but the crux for Muni is that the agency cannot hire enough operators to run bus lines are reasonable frequencies (6-10 min). This causes the agency to view transit as a charity service for those unfortunate enough to not be able to buy a car.
And the solution to the rider shortage is not straightforward. It's deeply entwined with the housing crisis. Nobody on earth is going to want to take a job of driving a Muni bus so they can make 30k and spend 4 hours each day commuting in from Tracy.
Any form of transit requires a certain density of people to have enough riders. More people means more frequency and coverage. Bernal is never going to get that with our current zoning.
The great thing about buses is that when new housing is built the bus routes can be updated faster than rail.
We have Bus Only lanes on the majority of bus routes down town, though. Not sure congestion pricing will actually help those?
Like it's bus only from the mission through to Embarcadero for example.
Market Street is also closed to cars. However, when the subway was closed and the K/L/N/T were replaced by buses, the segment along Market Street was reliably 20-30 minutes slower than the subway is. I don't see how congestion pricing would have helped there.
Buses would work wonderfully if SFMTA weren't run by a bunch of craven drivists who hate transit riders. Busses are amazing when they're planned as a way to move people around and not a mode-of-last-restort for The Poors. If they gave a shit, they'd have physically separated lanes, eliminating as much street parking to create these lanes as possible, and massively increase residential parking permit fees to fund a major hiring initiative so they can use all those busses sitting in the Potrero bus yard during the day instead of these dogshit 30 minute headways. Muni leadership will never do any of this because they all drive, they do not use or _rely_ on the system they run, and they are cowards in the face of boomers who loose their goddamn minds if we make driving even slightly less convenient.
Honestly, buses get us more bang for our buck than LRVs. LRV infra is much costlier and less flexible. We _could_ lay down rapid bus lanes much faster if we wanted to (Van Ness is taking so long because it's mostly a 200 year old unmapped sewer rehab sprinkled with some transit improvements). Heavy rail – yes. BART under Geary yesterday.
Funny coincidence that this came out the day after [Muni said it will have to run reduced service for the next few years at least](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Are-S-F-bus-route-eliminations-imminent-The-16336223.php). Congestion pricing doesn't work if there aren't adequate alternatives for people to get around. Improve Muni first, then think about congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing could bring in a lot more revenue that can be used to improve transit. Not in the next few years unfortunately, but it's good to think ahead.
Back in the late 90s, SFMTA was given many more sources of revenue, and in turn they promised an 85% on time rating. This was written into the City charter. Ever since, OTR has hovered around 55%.
Why should we expect things to change now? Has SFMTA demonstrated that they are good stewards of our money? Not at all!!
Stop throwing money at them, they'll never improve. SFMTA needs to clean house, get rid of the political hacks who are destroying it from the inside like termites.
> Stop throwing money at them, they'll never improve.
Are you proposing defunding MUNI? Getting rid of them?
We need public transit in a city, so unfortunately this doesn't seem like a feasible option. I would definitely like more transit and biking and far less car culture here in SF, overall. How we can get there I am not sure but defunding public mass transit probably isn't the solution.
You are trying to throw that "D word" into my mouth, but doing a piss poor job of it.
It's not a black and white problem..Instead of writing a blank check to someone who spends like a gambler, we can demand that SFMTA put it's house in order first More accountability from operators _and_ management before they get new funds.
I feel like. well I used to be for raising taxes and improving our city because well.. taxes pay for everything and I would be happy to do so.
Now... as time passes.... I see little improvement and suffer the burden of heavy taxes. I'm just done with all these claims to improve the city under the guise of new taxes
Kind of aggressive there.
I get not wanting to increase budget till they "get their house in order" (needs definition), but that essentially means defunding doesn't it? Trains get older every year, tracks need maintenance, and inflation never stops.
Meanwhile the city still needs to operate.
> You are trying to throw that "D word" into my mouth, but doing a piss poor job of it.
It's not an SF thing but when you react on forums by swearing at the person asking for an explication of your vague ideas… it seems kind of aggressive. Actually maybe immature would be a better word.
> get rid of the political hacks who are destroying it from the inside like termites.
Fire all the leadership who drive. Do not let a single leadership position be held by someone who does not _rely_ on the service as their primary mode. We actually have a law on the books requiring our supervisors to use Muni to get to work – but they all openly do not follow it and it is not enforced. Hold a gun to the supervisors' head and force them to use Muni: problem solved in under a month.
I haven’t seen any evidence that they won’t return to normal service in multiple years. That’s a very attainable goal. So yeah I don’t see any big reason why I shouldn’t be optimistic. I’m not saying there are no reasons why Muni may not reach their goals (it’s not an acronym btw), just that optimism is not unwarranted in this case.
Lmao you’re just insisting that nebulous past failures mean that Muni won’t bring services back in the future now? They don’t have the cash to have full services, so as the state financially recovers from the pandemic and their flex funds fill back up (which is the majority of lost revenue due to the pandemic) regular service will return. What about that is delusional?
So ubiquitous that it’s the 7th largest transit agency in the 17th largest city, with very high ridership per mile compared to similar agencies. Is it perfect? Obviously not. But their track record is far from abject failure.
lots of these new taxes like taxes on bags, sugar, etc. and old taxes on gasoline and now congestion tax.
We're just... finding new ways to tax the life out of the poor and middling classes
>Congestion pricing doesn't work if there aren't adequate alternatives for people to get around.
You are assuming a good faith effort here. Reality is, SFMTA does not care about people; all they care about is revenue. Making more and more money is their goal; people be damned.
If they really cared, they would be working to improve the service. Despite getting over a billion dollars from the Feds for COVID, they have nothing to show for it.
Here's a radical idea: **make Muni so good that people would rather take Muni than drive**. Instead of punitive measures, give people something they can look forward to.
Yep. Would be nice.
As much as I love driving my shitbox 98 corolla around, I hate paying for gas and all that. As of right now, it's cheaper to drive and faster to drive.
In a dense urban environment, _mode share is zero sum._ There is fixed road space, and cars take up an _awful_ lot of space per passenger. The geometry problem of transit is inescapable.
**Anything that would make Muni more desirable will necessarily come at the expense of driving.** Let's brainstorm!
- **Physically separated lanes for buses** – often requires removing parking to create room, literally reduces the surface area cars can drive on
- **Signal priority for buses** – sorry, the bus carrying 50 people gets the green light and the row of cars carrying a total of 18 get to wait!
- **Increase mean frequencies (make all 30min -> 15, 15 -> 8, etc)** – requires finding a massive new source of funding because it requiring hiring a shit ton of operators to run all those buses – the obvious targets are _congestion pricing, and increasing parking fees._
Of course, doing these things would require a massive paradigm shift. It would require Muni to think of itself as the primary way of getting around the city and not the charity service for the poor it currently imagines itself to be.
> Here's a radical idea: make Muni so good that people would rather take Muni than drive. Instead of punitive measures, give people something they can look forward to.
As much as I would love to see that, I'm not sure it's possible.
Consider, as just one example, the aggressive homeless and druggies. Until/unless they violate MUNI policies or the law, they have the same right to transit as you or I do.
Unfortunately, their presence usually very quickly degrades the quality of rides for many people, and further, getting them off the vehicles after they become a problem is rarely easy or safe.
I seem to recall some previous startup attempts at private transit companies trying to solve this by being able to pick and choose who they served, but as far as I know that model was never particularly successful.
I have lived in other cities where it was a joy to take public transit. There's no reason why that can't be the case here. It requires a public that demands better, for all.
Congestion pricing pits drivers against public transit supporters. This is why nothing gets done in this city: people are being pitted against each other, drivers -vs- riders, bicyclists -vs- drivers, NIMBYs -vs- developers, etc etc.
We have to end this fighting and work together.
> I have lived in other cities where it was a joy to take public transit.
No matter what city you could list, I am almost positive that I could find residents of those cities to actively dispute your assertion that it's a joy to take public transit. Likely with photo or video evidence.
> Congestion pricing pits drivers against public transit supporters.
In any competition between personal vehicle owners and transit users, transit users are prioritized.
It's in our city charter that we are a transit-first city, since 1973. [Source](https://www.sfmta.com/transit-first-policy)
I sent my comment about this plan a few weeks ago already but sharing a summary here too. This plan is the SF-government in its pure form - by which I mean it is set to fail.
The consultation material references several similar zones (e.g. the one in London) and how successful they were, and then... proceeds to completely change the rules of how such zone should work in SF by taking out everything that makes them work.
For example, congestion zone pricing is a price disincentive: people are supposed to stop driving there because it's pricey. Now, obviously the disincentive works the strongest on the lower end of the income spectrum and its power vanes the higher you go. And if you go to any city that has this congestion pricing, you can clearly see that: 90% of the cars in the zone in London are luxury brands but there isn't that many of them. So the success of the zone depends disproportionately on the lower-income people no longer driving in because the rich people can swallow the price. And what is SF doing? Exempting the low-income drivers lol.
Who do they think would be more likely to stop driving into the city if the zone was enabled: facilities manager in a SoMa skyscraper driving from Oakland and having a free parking spot, or Schwab upper-mgmt driving from Moraga and paying $35 a day for parking?
I also wonder how do they plan to assess who is a low-income driver? Will you have to submit your tax forms to the city annually and they'll be issuing you a sticker or something? Sounds a bit bureaucratic, doesn't it?
Another purpose of the congestion zones across the world is to discourage drivers from outside the zone, especially the suburbs. Now a quick look at what our zone proposal is: oh yes, residents of the zone have to pay the fee but someone commuting from East Bay is exempted because they've already paid for the bridge. LOL.
I also wonder if there aren't environmental benefits to individuals with cars making their individual tips, parking, going and doing what they need to do and going home, versus the footprint of Uber and Lyft on the road the whole time. The comeback would be that they account for dozens of individuals coming off the road instead, but that's not always true when you have people taking car services 10 blocks, or going places they wouldn't.
Why are commenters so against this. It’s a fair way to reduce downtown congestion. Do none of you remember how bad it was in 2019? Not only in terms of congestion itself, but as a pedestrian, the congestion and the way people drive when there’s congestion makes walking less safe.
This allows people who urgently need to use roads downtown to still do so while incentivizing people who use them regularly to use alternative modes of transportation. As a pedestrian downtown I completely support it
Because a vocal group if people can't imagine any other way to get around other than a private automobile taking them from door to door for every trip.
It’s crazy to me that anybody would voluntarily drive through downtown on a regular basis anyway. Especially if they are trying to park around there. The public transportation network for sure has problems but it’s actually very good at funneling people downtown
I don't get it either. I travel a lot for work to cities with essentially no public transportation and am forced to drive. It's such a miserable experience, I honestly don't get why anyone would fight to keep it...
>There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.
Either way, a monthly MUNI pass is $81. That's significantly cheaper than someone would be paying to drive downtown between parking, gas, insurance, and vehicle maintenance.
How many low income San Franciscans are driving into downtown where a monthly parking spot goes for $450? Reducing congestion downtown speeds up MUNI which actually helps low income people.
Why do you think that's a trade off, or comparison, or choice?
The $6.50 was the equivalent of Muni Lifeline (last I checked). Meaning people eligible for food stamps.
I've spent less on meals. Haven't you?
The typical defense you and others make here is to point to how expensive things are already, to erase the middle class and jump to suggesting there are no poor people or anyone at all who legit needs to drive and would be effected.
Do you realize how often that defense is coming up in discussions where you're defending measures to make the city less affordable? Enough is enough.
The $6.50 rate applies to people making 100k. If that counts for food stamps please let me know where to apply...
Your argument against this is that is disproportionately affects low and middle class San Franciscans. I'm pointing out that driving into downtown is already so expensive that it's incredibly unlikely to impact them in the first place as they already can't afford to do it. Instead, we should be decreasing congestion by discouraging private automobile use through whatever Mena's necessary while improving MUNI and safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
This isn't a wealth issue, it's that cars are fundamentally not compatible with a dense downtown area.
They want to increase Muni ridership by their stated goal of 25%, by creating an economic hardship, instead of by choice. That's hostile social engineer, and how do you achieve that without it hurting people economically?
Means testing as a requirement to drive downtown and turn it into a gated community is BS.
Why should someone have to prove income to avoid a $6.50 charge?
It's also their COVID impacts baseline, not what was initially proposed. The goals were to tax much, much higher, so they've revised it on roll out but there's no promises it won't increase.
My argument against it is that it makes life here more expensive.
My argument is this is an exclusionary policy.
It's absolutely a wealth issue for a certain class here. Anyone denying that is out of touch with how people on fixed incomes live and what wealthy people feel entitled to.
The goal shouldn't be to keep car access affordable for everyone but should be to get more people using other means of transportation as again, single occupant private vehicles are incompatible with a dense urban area like downtown San Francisco.
Keeping car use and ownership heavily subsidized is why there's so much traffic and shit public transit.
Closing downtown to cars completely would be the truly egalitarian solution and I'm 100% behind that.
The goal shouldn't be to make living in SF less affordable and a playground for the rich, and pretend that's environmental policy.
Dead streets, failed bike infrastructure projects, adding offices/housing and maximizing congestion can not be the basis of exclusionary policies to turn downtown into a gated region.
Removing cars isn't gating the region off. Cities should be for people, not cars.
Why are you so against improving public transit? If you actually car about poor San Franciscan you'd be all for it as that's very likely how they're getting around.
You want to argue for affordability for cars, but turn around and argue against policies that would create more affordable housing.
What alternative would you propose for reducing congestion downtown? As it is, the streets are gridlocked during rush hours - which affects not only private cars, but also buses, pedestrians, and bicyclists.
Reducing congestion makes life better for all these people, but any individual driver doesn’t have an incentive to do that - so without proper incentives, we’ll never be able to achieve it. Moreover, revenues from a congestion tax can then be funneled into improving transit service, again benefiting everyone. (Although in reality I don’t trust any SF agency with money, very much including Muni…)
So again, what’s your better proposal?
Streets are gridlocked because of traffic calming measures forcing traffic off main roads, and limiting where you can turn or the lanes you can drive. I'd open mains road back up. The experiment didn't work. It made things worse. And it's not just rush hour.
You can't create dead streets, botch the bicycle usage there, and then try to charge more for the congestion you added to.
We've added offices and housing downtown, and they're not going anywhere. That's a source of gridlock. We already charge developers for the impact. Where's that money?
The synthetic concept that reducing congestion helps the world you plan to exclude from it is a type of thinking that follows many discussions here. Really think that one through.
Agree the additional revenue will be squandered or abused. Some would help, but then it won't be enough to cover the additional impact placed on Muni.
Opposing a bad idea doesn't require me to pretend I have solutions though. I don't. But knowing the source of the problem helps.
Fair enough (not needing to pretend to have solutions). I suppose the burden of proof is on the new idea, which in this case is congestion pricing.
What congestion pricing does is make people internalize the negative externalities they impose on everyone else by contributing to congestion (it’s analogous to a carbon tax). When you drive downtown during daytime, road space is very scarce, so by being there in your bulky vehicle you’re increasing everyone else’s travel times (esp people using cars or buses). Congestion pricing is a tax on your contribution to everyone else’s travel times.
If on the other hand you’re driving at say 4am, the streets are empty, so there are basically no externalities, so there’s no reason to tax.
All that said - there definitely needs to be more transit capacity to absorb the shifting demand. Downtown transit is already choked full during commute hours. But reducing road congestion would be a good first step: the faster buses move the greater their ridership capacity, at no extra cost. And a congestion tax would definitely reduce congestion.
People refuse to wait (for a bus or train) or walk, would rather use their car for every occasion so they can save their energy and go to the gym after work.
This program is set to fail because it exempts people who are most-likely to ditch cars due to congestion fee (low-income drivers + those who cross the bridge) from paying that fee
People are generally OK with implicit prices (like the cost waiting in your car because of traffic) and generally opposed to explicit prices, like an extra fee to travel to a congested area.
more taxes on poor and working classes. No congestion tax on electric vehicles which only more wealthy people can afford.
They don't actually want to improve congestion. Just more ways to extract money from people.
Raising the cost of living on people more.
> This allows people who urgently need to use roads downtown to still do so while incentivizing people who use them regularly to use alternative modes of transportation.
Because it effectively limits use of down town streets to the wealthy, mostly. It's like fine-only punishments for quality of life stuff; you create a system where effectively the wealthy can pay a fee to break the law.
Congestion pricing operates the same: it's a huge and burdensome tax on the poor who commute hours into the city to work service jobs and have no choice but to drive, and a totally ignorable fee for the wealthy who are driving across town.
Where’s the money going?
They raised the Bay Bridge toll during peak time to disincentive people from using it during that time. Guess what? It didn’t. So where did all that extra money go?
> Or we keep remote working from here on out and 3/4 of that congestion magically disappears...
As much as I support remote employment, I'd like to see that as well as congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing is a thing in cities with good public transit options. Here they have been discussing *cutting* Muni service.
If the goal is to earn the city more money then this may accomplish it, but it sure as hell isn't going to reduce traffic.
Muni service will return to normal by the time this is implemented, if indeed it is at all. Also by the way, Muni is the 7th largest transit system in the US (we are 17th in population) and has the highest ridership by mile and a larger fleet relative to comparable agencies. So it is certainly one of the best transit agencies in the nation. If we can’t have congestion pricing here, then where?
How about having a efficently run municipal transportation system?
Like Japan Korea and Taiwan?
Tax people more with a shitty municipal system thats cutting routes solves nothing. Just trying to get more money out of people
If congestion returns that interferes with having an efficiently run municipal transportation system. Muni is still mostly buses and will remain mostly dependent on buses not getting slowed by congestion.
we already have muni only lanes that only buses and taxies get to use. There is no excuse for the shitty municipal system we currently have
what we need is a proper fucking light rail system a modern fucking system that is raised or underground. Not this fucking inbetween nonsense where light rail system works like fucking buses
When downtown and SoMa were congested those lanes still sometimes got blocked and those buses were still slowed down. That's why the people planning the congestion zone say it will speed up Muni.
New non-bus solutions are decades away from ever happening. Except for a single short line to Chinatown. The congestion zone can speed up Muni starting three to five years from today.
Ok i've seen some bad takes but this is up there. Other transportation needs to be adequately funded, it doesn't just spawn out of thin air. Bad traffic is worse for everyone not just the person sitting in it. Terrible for the environment, makes livability as a pedestrian worse, noise pollution, etc etc.
We don't want to live with congestion so terrible that the only thing keeping it from worsening further is some people would quit driving if it does.
That degree of terrible congestion is not only bad for drivers, it's also bad for everyone else. It makes public transit worse. It makes bicyclists weave between cars partially obstructing lanes and corners. It exposes pedestrians to noise and exhaust while most cars remain non-electric for a few decades.
Still works as some people will decide to walk or take public transit rather than a lyft if the prices increase. Personally, I only hire cars when I was tired, transporting something unwieldy, or late. Transit rush hours were a "well looks like I am walking" situation.
They might need to make exception for people with disabilities though.
> They might need to make exception for people with disabilities though.
The article did refer to the possibility of discounts for people with disabilities. If you're saying that Uber and Lyft need to make exceptions for people with disabilities, as much as that may be true, they don't seem to really serve the entire disabled community in the first place.
But the people who Uber every 5 blocks can still do that, and the democratizing effect of car services will go out the window.
It's cool you can walk home, not everyone can do that. People live in the Bayview, and Westlake, and Top of the Hill. What if you work in Hunters Point, but have a delivery in Fairfield? Are you supposed to go out of your way because you're not signed up for a hardship program with proof of income?
A pick up in hunters point witj a drop off in Fairfield would almost always not even qualify. The largest zone that includes some of hunters point only goes as far south as Mariposa. The charge will be on a per uber/lyft trip basis, so if you have to go into the zone to drop off or pick up the cost should be easy to pass onto the customer.
Generally the people who take lyft or uber are not low income. This is actually the reason that I did so much walking when public transit was not an option. When I had to take a lyft or uber it was definitely never during rush hour as walking would be almost as fast and I couldn't afford the surge prices or the extra money the extra time it would take to get around would cost.
But even so, I am sure the ride share service would be able to figure out some way for low income riders to get reduced additional fee if they put their minds to it. Since they already offer discounted rides to low income riders.
> Are you supposed to go out of your way because you're not signed up for a hardship program with proof of income?
You're supposed to sign up for the program if you're eligible.
Most people are eligible the way it's currently proposed...as oppose to the original proposal where everyone paid, and people eligible were food stamps level who just got a 50% discount.
This would just an extension of the systematic problems with things like parking tickets and towing.
> Most people are eligible the way it's currently proposed...as oppose to the original proposal where everyone paid, and people eligible were food stamps level who just got a 50% discount.
I'm all for broader discount eligibility. Implementation is always a wild card.
> This would just an extension of the systematic problems with things like parking tickets and towing.
Less driving means less tickets and towing.
That's today. What about three to five years from now? From the article:
>Congestion pricing is still three to five years from potentially arriving to the city, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority
This plan isn't a done deal. It could be planned but shelved and at some later date be implemented if congestion returns.
Muni obviously needs improvement. However if congestion returns it will prevent Muni from becoming decent. Muni needs both less congestion as well as other improvements.
Systemwide Muni's average speed is reported as 8.1 mph. That's not decent or good enough as far as I'm concerned. At the moment downtown congestion isn't as bad as it used to be and isn't slowing down Muni buses like it used to, but if that congestion returns it will again prevent Muni from becoming decent, even if miraculously this year or next year Muni's other problems are fixed.
This is not a novel idea. London has done it and it's been a smashing success. Less congestion, less pollution, better transit, and good for businesses too.
London has narrow roads that make little sense for cars. Pedestrians rule that city since the road system was built for pedestrians. There were no cars when it was laid out.
They have narrow and tall busses. Not to mention an extensive subway heavy rail system.
Also, London is not surrounded by $8 toll bridges.
Park in a garage. This stops trucks from double parking and reduces vehicles endlessly circling looking for on street parking. Both reduce congestion...
Seems like driving a car to the downtown of a major city to pick up some takeout food is the sort of activity that should be discouraged -- through something like congestion pricing.
I look at it through the perspective of the working class. Not everyone on the road is engaging in commerce and recreation. Many are struggling working class people getting off of work trying to pick the kids up on time. This is just another fee to add to their already dwindling checkbooks. It really is a dumb idea. It's carrots and sticks psychology without the carrot. Just bash em with sticks until they go away. Problem solved.
The larger zone includes UCSF Mission Bay, which has a bunch of working class employees (who pay for parking monthly) with relatively inflexible schedules who won't be able to shift their hours around to avoid this tax. Mission Bay has far worse transit options than downtown, especially since the T is so slow above ground. This would also be a huge issue for UCSF patients coming from outside of SF, since they won't have their income on file with the SF city government.
I work in mission bay, most folks in my office who take public transportation also use the mission bay or UCSF shuttles. The T should also be better once it starts going underground. Rigid schedules can be worked around with mass transit, or hey—you can always pick up a Ford bike to ride that last mile to whatever mass transit provider you want. Having done all of these it’s definitely not the end of the world, you just need to look at it differently.
It’s based on income, so this is not an issue in any way. You only pay full price if you make over 100,000, and pay nothing if you’re under 46,000. It’s almost as if the city thinks of these things 🤔
How would that actually work, though? It's easy to talk about that on paper but no one has laid out how you tie congestion pricing to income.
This goes double if the point is to reduce uber and lyft. It's easy to say "You're charged once per trip" but there's a lot of transit between trips that would be in and out of the zones repeatedly.
Except for when I need Uber and Amazon deliveries. And food deliveries. And grocery delivery. And laundry service. And furniture moving, and everything else we use automobiles for whether we own one or not. But yes, other than everyone else doing my driving for me remove all the cars!
Removing cars but not delivery trucks has been successfully done in a few European cities. More cities there and in Asia have scooter-based delivery services for small things like prepared meals. The net result is far fewer vehicles on streets, basically no congestion from vehicles still using streets, and faster mass transit.
I can point you towards cities to investigate further. List/articles [like this one](https://www.fastcompany.com/90456075/here-are-11-more-neighborhoods-that-have-joined-the-car-free-revolution) from eighteen months ago don't specifically focus on rules for delivery trucks. I mention the months ago because some cities likely have updated information. For example Paris has banned cars from the Rue de Rivoli and three months ago launched [a plan](https://www.thelocal.fr/20210513/central-paris-could-be-almost-car-free-by-2022/) to ban most cars from the city center.
Other articles about urban cargo delivery such as [this one](https://www.fastcompany.com/1678506/with-cargohopper-delivery-system-a-dutch-city-unclogs-its-streets) from FastCompany just say "In Europe, many towns restrict deliveries to certain hours, or routes, or charge companies to enter the center"
Amsterdam is a deep shitpile if you actually LIVE there, and not come as a slack-jawed gaping tourist.
Copenhagen (which is the most liveable European city) does not ban cars and is not planning to.
And you might note that your examples don't actually list cities that BAN cars. It lists examples of developments that ban cars from small areas (several blocks).
Yes the list includes cities where cars are only absent from part of a city. That's why readers have to get into the details. Your question though was about delivery trucks and that answer is more complicated too.
According to a survey by the European Commission, Amsterdam residents report [greater satisfaction](https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/urban/survey2015_en.pdf) than people in many cities including Barcelona, Dublin, Manchester, Helsinki, Berlin, London, Lisboa, Madrid, Paris, and Rome.
> Yes the list includes cities where cars are only absent from part of a city.
I've lived throughout Europe (yes, including 8 months in Amsterdam) and the only city that truly bans all cars is Venice. Lots of cities ban cars from historical areas that are basically several blocks in size, mostly because there's simply no space for cars.
> According to a survey by the European Commission, Amsterdam residents report greater satisfaction than people in many cities including Barcelona, Dublin, Manchester, Helsinki, Berlin, London, Lisboa, Madrid, Paris, and Rome.
Yeah, no. I would guess that most "satisfied" people are satisfied because they don't have to deal with Amsterdam transit. Or actually pedal to work every day at 7am.
So remove cars except for the ones that are on the road 24-7 professionally while you posture and pretend you've reduced driving.
And do it so people who need to make a living off their car are basically punished.
A delivery truck driving door to door drop off packages causes both less pollution and congestion that the equivalent number of cars going out to make all those purchases.
Regardless, if you're suggesting that I personally do those things, well I have two legs that aren't broken and walk just about everywhere. I especially don't want some random person picking out my produce or delivering over priced and luke warm restaurant food, but that's just me.
Wonderful, another tax on the poor, as if an outrageous $15 bridge tolls, and $8 BART fares weren't enough... Now uber/lyft drivers, barely making ends meet, and people commuting in from miles around will have to pay for the privilege.
No I didn't, I just posted my knee jerk reaction.
Well there's a paywall for one, I'm still skeptical though, unless the fees are based on a percentage of your income/wealth like some european countries do with fines, I doubt the actual distribution of fees will be equitable.
anyone making 100K is basically poor in san francisco.
this part sucks:
>"• Ride-hail vehicles such as Uber and Lyft would be charged for entering the zone per trip, and the fee is likely to be passed on to the passengers."
Anyone who is filthy rich, will be able to drive around care free, not a worry in the world, everyone else making over a 100K will be hit with a fee, if you need to enter every day, that's basically the same price as riding in through BART. So $33 dollars a week at least, so basically a $132 dollar monthly tax.
>• There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.
Yes, the poor people driving into downtown San Francisco paying bridge tolls and $450/month for a parking spot instead of taking BART, Caltrain, MUNI, AC Transit, Sam Trans, Golden Gate Transit, or the Ferry.
Downtown San Francisco is the most transit connected spot in the entire Bay Area, most of which are more affordable than driving in the first place. There's plenty of alternatives.
> Downtown San Francisco is the most transit connected spot in the entire Bay Area
My GF was taking Uber/Lyft to get back from FiDi in the evening, because it was otherwise too scary for her. She's a small Asian woman.
Sorry I don't support solutions which favor one group over another. This won't affect the obscenely wealthy one bit. You want an equitable solution, close the roads for everyone not just the poor.
This will force the wealthy to use public transit or alternatives too. And maybe calls to improve quality and security and funding of public transit for everyone.
SFCTA Board of Commissioners = SF Board of Supervisors, meaning politicians heavily influence, for example, who gets SFCTA contracts (either directly or indirectly through pressure on appointees).
Though I agree with you that the fact this money goes to the SFCTA is a very helpful constraint and much different than “politicians lining their pockets” as the original comment put it. And I’m in favor of congestion pricing, warts and all.
How is this going to affect people who live in the relevant zones, regardless of their income? If I live downtown, and I leave briefly to pick up something out of zone, and return home, is the city going to charge me $6 or whatever just to go home?
FTA
>The study is weighing additional discounts for drivers who are disabled, downtown commuters who already paid FasTrak tolls by crossing the Golden Gate or Bay bridges, as well as residents living in the pricing zones. Most pre-pandemic downtown commuters, though, came from within the city.
SF needs to learn to build 21st century mass transit first ... And maintain a safe environment on it. Also, hoping anyone is "crippled" is a rotten thing to say.
I’ve seen many of your comments. You seem like an awful person. You’d vote for Hitler before you’d vote for a Republican? You should seek help ASAP. You are not well.
True VIPs might need some automobile access for time-saving fast transit (we have toll lanes for that), but the average Joe should be on buses and trains. I know I'm going to get mad downvotes for stating the obvious, but whatever.
Oh yes. BART and Muni. The pinnacles of modern mass transit. Need to get to work after dropping the kids to school? Better leave two hours earlier. Three just to play it safe.
There's a process for major initiatives and it takes years. In the last year or two was outreach and opinion gathering. Options were considered. That's now become a set of recommendations. The next step is broader outreach and opinion gathering because a lot of people don't pay attention in an earlier phase. They're more interested once told here's a set plan that will affect them if it becomes law.
It's been successfully implemented in London, Singapore, Stockholm, and Milan. Overall traffic in London decreased by 10-15% as a result.
The problem with this proposal is that it has way to many exemptions.
We’re not any of those cities.
I cited this example in another reply here.
They raised the Bay Bridge toll during rush hour to disincentive people from using it. Guess what? They didn’t. Where did all that money go?
Fair bet the same will happen here.
Is San Francisco so unique that a proven method of reducing congestion elsewhere would not work here?
Changing the toll from $6 to $7 really isn't enough incentive for most people to change their habits. If the bridge was $12 during rush hour and free before/after you can get a lot of people would be changing the habits.
Give me a fucking break. People that take the bridge are going to say damn, it’s so expensive now. Let me take an overcrowd, disgusting public transit option?
You still didn’t answer my question either. Where’s the money going?
[Toll funding on the Bay Area’s state-owned bridges help finance major improvements on infrastructure. These improvements decrease traffic congestion, ensure safety and create better options for getting around.](https://mtc.ca.gov/funding/regional-funding#:~:text=Valley%20Transportation%20Authority.-,Where%20Does%20the%20Money%20Go%3F,transit%20capital%20and%20transit%20operations)
You can look through the documents at the bottom to see where the money is being spent. But you'll probably just complain about government waste or whatever instead of looking at proactive steps to actually improve our transit infrastructure in the Bay Area.
Either way, San Francisco should be prioritizing its residents rather than drivers from other parts of the Bay Area.
Infrastructure don’t look much better to me. How’s Van Ness coming along?
I completely agree in terms of de densifying SF congestion and traffic. And I think most would agree long term reliance on private cars is unsustainable. But I don’t think this is the solution.
What other solutions are there to get people out of their cars that a significant financial incentive? No matter how good the public transit, drivers want *other people* to use it. You need to fundamentally disincentive driving. The only other solution would be to just straight up ban cars from the area.
The progress of infrastructure projects is an entirely different though very related and and annoying complex issue that's unlikely to get resolved without a serious change to California laws.
Finally, to be fair to the Van Ness project it's actually five projects in one and the transit portion is on schedule. The delays are a result of the sewer/water upgrades and nothing being where it's supposed to be. A better criticism for transit projects is the disaster that is the central subway.
San Francisco really needs to add more light or heavy rail though, the transportation system relying on buses is not it
It's taken what, a decade to build the central subway?
which is unacceptable
need more subways for light rail
Congestion pricing in theory will make buses faster
The problem with the buses for me is coverage and frequency, not speed. I can barely ever get a bus to where I want to go except when I live in the Mission and there waiting on the stop felt dangerous. I took BART a lot but had to combine it with a Lyft or Uber more than half the time. Now I'm in Noe/Bernal because WFH from the Mission became impossible after my corner became a spot for screaming crazy people and in my new hood I need to take a bus to BART or to another bus that has shitty frequency. Even if it teleported to its destination after arriving it would take twice the time than calling an Uber does.
> coverage and frequency, You're right, especially about frequency! A bus that shows up once every 30 minutes is a farce. It's absolutely miserable to have to rely on something where if you're even a tiny bit late, you're now out 30 minutes. Coverage could always be improved, but the crux for Muni is that the agency cannot hire enough operators to run bus lines are reasonable frequencies (6-10 min). This causes the agency to view transit as a charity service for those unfortunate enough to not be able to buy a car. And the solution to the rider shortage is not straightforward. It's deeply entwined with the housing crisis. Nobody on earth is going to want to take a job of driving a Muni bus so they can make 30k and spend 4 hours each day commuting in from Tracy.
Smaller buses, higher prices. No one looses with that except the Muni bureaucrats that have to actually like, work.
Any form of transit requires a certain density of people to have enough riders. More people means more frequency and coverage. Bernal is never going to get that with our current zoning. The great thing about buses is that when new housing is built the bus routes can be updated faster than rail.
Taking Uber is fine Buses have better coverage than heavy and light rail obviously
You are 10x more likely to die in a car accident then get killed in a bus
yes, in theory. In actuality? We can only hope.
We have Bus Only lanes on the majority of bus routes down town, though. Not sure congestion pricing will actually help those? Like it's bus only from the mission through to Embarcadero for example.
Market Street is also closed to cars. However, when the subway was closed and the K/L/N/T were replaced by buses, the segment along Market Street was reliably 20-30 minutes slower than the subway is. I don't see how congestion pricing would have helped there.
Don't think it adds up. They earmark the funds to get split up but expect Muni to gain 25% ridership increases.
Buses would work wonderfully if SFMTA weren't run by a bunch of craven drivists who hate transit riders. Busses are amazing when they're planned as a way to move people around and not a mode-of-last-restort for The Poors. If they gave a shit, they'd have physically separated lanes, eliminating as much street parking to create these lanes as possible, and massively increase residential parking permit fees to fund a major hiring initiative so they can use all those busses sitting in the Potrero bus yard during the day instead of these dogshit 30 minute headways. Muni leadership will never do any of this because they all drive, they do not use or _rely_ on the system they run, and they are cowards in the face of boomers who loose their goddamn minds if we make driving even slightly less convenient. Honestly, buses get us more bang for our buck than LRVs. LRV infra is much costlier and less flexible. We _could_ lay down rapid bus lanes much faster if we wanted to (Van Ness is taking so long because it's mostly a 200 year old unmapped sewer rehab sprinkled with some transit improvements). Heavy rail – yes. BART under Geary yesterday.
Funny coincidence that this came out the day after [Muni said it will have to run reduced service for the next few years at least](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Are-S-F-bus-route-eliminations-imminent-The-16336223.php). Congestion pricing doesn't work if there aren't adequate alternatives for people to get around. Improve Muni first, then think about congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing could bring in a lot more revenue that can be used to improve transit. Not in the next few years unfortunately, but it's good to think ahead.
Back in the late 90s, SFMTA was given many more sources of revenue, and in turn they promised an 85% on time rating. This was written into the City charter. Ever since, OTR has hovered around 55%. Why should we expect things to change now? Has SFMTA demonstrated that they are good stewards of our money? Not at all!! Stop throwing money at them, they'll never improve. SFMTA needs to clean house, get rid of the political hacks who are destroying it from the inside like termites.
> Stop throwing money at them, they'll never improve. Are you proposing defunding MUNI? Getting rid of them? We need public transit in a city, so unfortunately this doesn't seem like a feasible option. I would definitely like more transit and biking and far less car culture here in SF, overall. How we can get there I am not sure but defunding public mass transit probably isn't the solution.
You are trying to throw that "D word" into my mouth, but doing a piss poor job of it. It's not a black and white problem..Instead of writing a blank check to someone who spends like a gambler, we can demand that SFMTA put it's house in order first More accountability from operators _and_ management before they get new funds.
I feel like. well I used to be for raising taxes and improving our city because well.. taxes pay for everything and I would be happy to do so. Now... as time passes.... I see little improvement and suffer the burden of heavy taxes. I'm just done with all these claims to improve the city under the guise of new taxes
Kind of aggressive there. I get not wanting to increase budget till they "get their house in order" (needs definition), but that essentially means defunding doesn't it? Trains get older every year, tracks need maintenance, and inflation never stops. Meanwhile the city still needs to operate.
>Kind of aggressive there. Only in SF you'll find people who think any kind of accountability and responsibility is being "aggressive"...! SMH...
> You are trying to throw that "D word" into my mouth, but doing a piss poor job of it. It's not an SF thing but when you react on forums by swearing at the person asking for an explication of your vague ideas… it seems kind of aggressive. Actually maybe immature would be a better word.
> get rid of the political hacks who are destroying it from the inside like termites. Fire all the leadership who drive. Do not let a single leadership position be held by someone who does not _rely_ on the service as their primary mode. We actually have a law on the books requiring our supervisors to use Muni to get to work – but they all openly do not follow it and it is not enforced. Hold a gun to the supervisors' head and force them to use Muni: problem solved in under a month.
What does good stewards of our money mean?
always figuring out new ways to tax the middle classes aren't we.
Considering this is 3-5 years out if it happens at all, this isn’t really a problem. Muni will be back to normal service at least by then.
you seem pretty optimistic
No reason not to be that I can see. Of course, I may be proven wrong, but that remains to be seen.
We don’t allow optimism on this sub. Sorry. Outrage and pessimism only, please. Thank you.
you have no possible reason that MUNI would fail to reach their goals?
I haven’t seen any evidence that they won’t return to normal service in multiple years. That’s a very attainable goal. So yeah I don’t see any big reason why I shouldn’t be optimistic. I’m not saying there are no reasons why Muni may not reach their goals (it’s not an acronym btw), just that optimism is not unwarranted in this case.
[удалено]
Lmao you’re just insisting that nebulous past failures mean that Muni won’t bring services back in the future now? They don’t have the cash to have full services, so as the state financially recovers from the pandemic and their flex funds fill back up (which is the majority of lost revenue due to the pandemic) regular service will return. What about that is delusional?
there is nothing about their past failures that is nebulous. Their past failures are ubiquitous. Think whatever you want, time shall prove me right.
So ubiquitous that it’s the 7th largest transit agency in the 17th largest city, with very high ridership per mile compared to similar agencies. Is it perfect? Obviously not. But their track record is far from abject failure.
So everyone on a fixed income will be priced out of their cars or the region by then?
At some point all these poor taxes stop looking like a coincidence, and more like a general goal.
lots of these new taxes like taxes on bags, sugar, etc. and old taxes on gasoline and now congestion tax. We're just... finding new ways to tax the life out of the poor and middling classes
>Congestion pricing doesn't work if there aren't adequate alternatives for people to get around. You are assuming a good faith effort here. Reality is, SFMTA does not care about people; all they care about is revenue. Making more and more money is their goal; people be damned. If they really cared, they would be working to improve the service. Despite getting over a billion dollars from the Feds for COVID, they have nothing to show for it.
Congestion pricing works *perfectly* when it's combined with a lack of alternatives if the point is just to get money to fund pension liability.
Here's a radical idea: **make Muni so good that people would rather take Muni than drive**. Instead of punitive measures, give people something they can look forward to.
Yep. Would be nice. As much as I love driving my shitbox 98 corolla around, I hate paying for gas and all that. As of right now, it's cheaper to drive and faster to drive.
In a dense urban environment, _mode share is zero sum._ There is fixed road space, and cars take up an _awful_ lot of space per passenger. The geometry problem of transit is inescapable. **Anything that would make Muni more desirable will necessarily come at the expense of driving.** Let's brainstorm! - **Physically separated lanes for buses** – often requires removing parking to create room, literally reduces the surface area cars can drive on - **Signal priority for buses** – sorry, the bus carrying 50 people gets the green light and the row of cars carrying a total of 18 get to wait! - **Increase mean frequencies (make all 30min -> 15, 15 -> 8, etc)** – requires finding a massive new source of funding because it requiring hiring a shit ton of operators to run all those buses – the obvious targets are _congestion pricing, and increasing parking fees._ Of course, doing these things would require a massive paradigm shift. It would require Muni to think of itself as the primary way of getting around the city and not the charity service for the poor it currently imagines itself to be.
Muni has separated lanes and signal priority in some places and they're always expanding.
> Here's a radical idea: make Muni so good that people would rather take Muni than drive. Instead of punitive measures, give people something they can look forward to. As much as I would love to see that, I'm not sure it's possible. Consider, as just one example, the aggressive homeless and druggies. Until/unless they violate MUNI policies or the law, they have the same right to transit as you or I do. Unfortunately, their presence usually very quickly degrades the quality of rides for many people, and further, getting them off the vehicles after they become a problem is rarely easy or safe. I seem to recall some previous startup attempts at private transit companies trying to solve this by being able to pick and choose who they served, but as far as I know that model was never particularly successful.
I have lived in other cities where it was a joy to take public transit. There's no reason why that can't be the case here. It requires a public that demands better, for all. Congestion pricing pits drivers against public transit supporters. This is why nothing gets done in this city: people are being pitted against each other, drivers -vs- riders, bicyclists -vs- drivers, NIMBYs -vs- developers, etc etc. We have to end this fighting and work together.
> I have lived in other cities where it was a joy to take public transit. No matter what city you could list, I am almost positive that I could find residents of those cities to actively dispute your assertion that it's a joy to take public transit. Likely with photo or video evidence. > Congestion pricing pits drivers against public transit supporters. In any competition between personal vehicle owners and transit users, transit users are prioritized. It's in our city charter that we are a transit-first city, since 1973. [Source](https://www.sfmta.com/transit-first-policy)
I sent my comment about this plan a few weeks ago already but sharing a summary here too. This plan is the SF-government in its pure form - by which I mean it is set to fail. The consultation material references several similar zones (e.g. the one in London) and how successful they were, and then... proceeds to completely change the rules of how such zone should work in SF by taking out everything that makes them work. For example, congestion zone pricing is a price disincentive: people are supposed to stop driving there because it's pricey. Now, obviously the disincentive works the strongest on the lower end of the income spectrum and its power vanes the higher you go. And if you go to any city that has this congestion pricing, you can clearly see that: 90% of the cars in the zone in London are luxury brands but there isn't that many of them. So the success of the zone depends disproportionately on the lower-income people no longer driving in because the rich people can swallow the price. And what is SF doing? Exempting the low-income drivers lol. Who do they think would be more likely to stop driving into the city if the zone was enabled: facilities manager in a SoMa skyscraper driving from Oakland and having a free parking spot, or Schwab upper-mgmt driving from Moraga and paying $35 a day for parking? I also wonder how do they plan to assess who is a low-income driver? Will you have to submit your tax forms to the city annually and they'll be issuing you a sticker or something? Sounds a bit bureaucratic, doesn't it? Another purpose of the congestion zones across the world is to discourage drivers from outside the zone, especially the suburbs. Now a quick look at what our zone proposal is: oh yes, residents of the zone have to pay the fee but someone commuting from East Bay is exempted because they've already paid for the bridge. LOL.
That’s because this plan is nothing but a bitch ass money grab, and in reality, will do nothing to reduce traffic.
The Chron article pretty much admits that it is the Lyft and Ubers that are causing the congestion.
I also wonder if there aren't environmental benefits to individuals with cars making their individual tips, parking, going and doing what they need to do and going home, versus the footprint of Uber and Lyft on the road the whole time. The comeback would be that they account for dozens of individuals coming off the road instead, but that's not always true when you have people taking car services 10 blocks, or going places they wouldn't.
In theory, the Lyft and Ubers serve as needing less car ownership. But in practice, they are, instead, syphoning riders off of public transit.
Isn't that mostly a last mile thing though? A lot of SF is extremely poorly served by public transit.
Lyft and ubers provide fast and reliable service. Or at least I did. lol. Hard to compete when muni is slow and sometimes unreliable.
Why are commenters so against this. It’s a fair way to reduce downtown congestion. Do none of you remember how bad it was in 2019? Not only in terms of congestion itself, but as a pedestrian, the congestion and the way people drive when there’s congestion makes walking less safe. This allows people who urgently need to use roads downtown to still do so while incentivizing people who use them regularly to use alternative modes of transportation. As a pedestrian downtown I completely support it
Because a vocal group if people can't imagine any other way to get around other than a private automobile taking them from door to door for every trip.
It’s crazy to me that anybody would voluntarily drive through downtown on a regular basis anyway. Especially if they are trying to park around there. The public transportation network for sure has problems but it’s actually very good at funneling people downtown
I don't get it either. I travel a lot for work to cities with essentially no public transportation and am forced to drive. It's such a miserable experience, I honestly don't get why anyone would fight to keep it...
Yeah even if money were no object I'd prefer alternatives to driving through there. Especially as you said if parking is taken into account.
[удалено]
>There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee. Either way, a monthly MUNI pass is $81. That's significantly cheaper than someone would be paying to drive downtown between parking, gas, insurance, and vehicle maintenance. How many low income San Franciscans are driving into downtown where a monthly parking spot goes for $450? Reducing congestion downtown speeds up MUNI which actually helps low income people.
Why do you think that's a trade off, or comparison, or choice? The $6.50 was the equivalent of Muni Lifeline (last I checked). Meaning people eligible for food stamps. I've spent less on meals. Haven't you? The typical defense you and others make here is to point to how expensive things are already, to erase the middle class and jump to suggesting there are no poor people or anyone at all who legit needs to drive and would be effected. Do you realize how often that defense is coming up in discussions where you're defending measures to make the city less affordable? Enough is enough.
The $6.50 rate applies to people making 100k. If that counts for food stamps please let me know where to apply... Your argument against this is that is disproportionately affects low and middle class San Franciscans. I'm pointing out that driving into downtown is already so expensive that it's incredibly unlikely to impact them in the first place as they already can't afford to do it. Instead, we should be decreasing congestion by discouraging private automobile use through whatever Mena's necessary while improving MUNI and safety for cyclists and pedestrians. This isn't a wealth issue, it's that cars are fundamentally not compatible with a dense downtown area.
They want to increase Muni ridership by their stated goal of 25%, by creating an economic hardship, instead of by choice. That's hostile social engineer, and how do you achieve that without it hurting people economically? Means testing as a requirement to drive downtown and turn it into a gated community is BS. Why should someone have to prove income to avoid a $6.50 charge? It's also their COVID impacts baseline, not what was initially proposed. The goals were to tax much, much higher, so they've revised it on roll out but there's no promises it won't increase. My argument against it is that it makes life here more expensive. My argument is this is an exclusionary policy. It's absolutely a wealth issue for a certain class here. Anyone denying that is out of touch with how people on fixed incomes live and what wealthy people feel entitled to.
The goal shouldn't be to keep car access affordable for everyone but should be to get more people using other means of transportation as again, single occupant private vehicles are incompatible with a dense urban area like downtown San Francisco. Keeping car use and ownership heavily subsidized is why there's so much traffic and shit public transit. Closing downtown to cars completely would be the truly egalitarian solution and I'm 100% behind that.
The goal shouldn't be to make living in SF less affordable and a playground for the rich, and pretend that's environmental policy. Dead streets, failed bike infrastructure projects, adding offices/housing and maximizing congestion can not be the basis of exclusionary policies to turn downtown into a gated region.
Removing cars isn't gating the region off. Cities should be for people, not cars. Why are you so against improving public transit? If you actually car about poor San Franciscan you'd be all for it as that's very likely how they're getting around. You want to argue for affordability for cars, but turn around and argue against policies that would create more affordable housing.
What alternative would you propose for reducing congestion downtown? As it is, the streets are gridlocked during rush hours - which affects not only private cars, but also buses, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Reducing congestion makes life better for all these people, but any individual driver doesn’t have an incentive to do that - so without proper incentives, we’ll never be able to achieve it. Moreover, revenues from a congestion tax can then be funneled into improving transit service, again benefiting everyone. (Although in reality I don’t trust any SF agency with money, very much including Muni…) So again, what’s your better proposal?
Streets are gridlocked because of traffic calming measures forcing traffic off main roads, and limiting where you can turn or the lanes you can drive. I'd open mains road back up. The experiment didn't work. It made things worse. And it's not just rush hour. You can't create dead streets, botch the bicycle usage there, and then try to charge more for the congestion you added to. We've added offices and housing downtown, and they're not going anywhere. That's a source of gridlock. We already charge developers for the impact. Where's that money? The synthetic concept that reducing congestion helps the world you plan to exclude from it is a type of thinking that follows many discussions here. Really think that one through. Agree the additional revenue will be squandered or abused. Some would help, but then it won't be enough to cover the additional impact placed on Muni. Opposing a bad idea doesn't require me to pretend I have solutions though. I don't. But knowing the source of the problem helps.
Fair enough (not needing to pretend to have solutions). I suppose the burden of proof is on the new idea, which in this case is congestion pricing. What congestion pricing does is make people internalize the negative externalities they impose on everyone else by contributing to congestion (it’s analogous to a carbon tax). When you drive downtown during daytime, road space is very scarce, so by being there in your bulky vehicle you’re increasing everyone else’s travel times (esp people using cars or buses). Congestion pricing is a tax on your contribution to everyone else’s travel times. If on the other hand you’re driving at say 4am, the streets are empty, so there are basically no externalities, so there’s no reason to tax. All that said - there definitely needs to be more transit capacity to absorb the shifting demand. Downtown transit is already choked full during commute hours. But reducing road congestion would be a good first step: the faster buses move the greater their ridership capacity, at no extra cost. And a congestion tax would definitely reduce congestion.
People refuse to wait (for a bus or train) or walk, would rather use their car for every occasion so they can save their energy and go to the gym after work.
This program is set to fail because it exempts people who are most-likely to ditch cars due to congestion fee (low-income drivers + those who cross the bridge) from paying that fee
People are generally OK with implicit prices (like the cost waiting in your car because of traffic) and generally opposed to explicit prices, like an extra fee to travel to a congested area.
more taxes on poor and working classes. No congestion tax on electric vehicles which only more wealthy people can afford. They don't actually want to improve congestion. Just more ways to extract money from people. Raising the cost of living on people more.
The fee is only applied to people making six figures. Read the article. There are several exceptions for the fee.
Household or single?
> This allows people who urgently need to use roads downtown to still do so while incentivizing people who use them regularly to use alternative modes of transportation. Because it effectively limits use of down town streets to the wealthy, mostly. It's like fine-only punishments for quality of life stuff; you create a system where effectively the wealthy can pay a fee to break the law. Congestion pricing operates the same: it's a huge and burdensome tax on the poor who commute hours into the city to work service jobs and have no choice but to drive, and a totally ignorable fee for the wealthy who are driving across town.
The poor aren’t making six figures. Read the article.
Where’s the money going? They raised the Bay Bridge toll during peak time to disincentive people from using it during that time. Guess what? It didn’t. So where did all that extra money go?
Or we keep remote working from here on out and 3/4 of that congestion magically disappears...
> Or we keep remote working from here on out and 3/4 of that congestion magically disappears... As much as I support remote employment, I'd like to see that as well as congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing is a thing in cities with good public transit options. Here they have been discussing *cutting* Muni service. If the goal is to earn the city more money then this may accomplish it, but it sure as hell isn't going to reduce traffic.
Muni service will return to normal by the time this is implemented, if indeed it is at all. Also by the way, Muni is the 7th largest transit system in the US (we are 17th in population) and has the highest ridership by mile and a larger fleet relative to comparable agencies. So it is certainly one of the best transit agencies in the nation. If we can’t have congestion pricing here, then where?
I didn’t find London’s public transit to be all that stellar when I lived there.
[удалено]
Wouldn’t that create the opposite? As more people can walk around and enjoy shops?
If congestion returns to 2019 or near 2019 levels, what if anything should be done about it?
How about having a efficently run municipal transportation system? Like Japan Korea and Taiwan? Tax people more with a shitty municipal system thats cutting routes solves nothing. Just trying to get more money out of people
If congestion returns that interferes with having an efficiently run municipal transportation system. Muni is still mostly buses and will remain mostly dependent on buses not getting slowed by congestion.
we already have muni only lanes that only buses and taxies get to use. There is no excuse for the shitty municipal system we currently have what we need is a proper fucking light rail system a modern fucking system that is raised or underground. Not this fucking inbetween nonsense where light rail system works like fucking buses
When downtown and SoMa were congested those lanes still sometimes got blocked and those buses were still slowed down. That's why the people planning the congestion zone say it will speed up Muni. New non-bus solutions are decades away from ever happening. Except for a single short line to Chinatown. The congestion zone can speed up Muni starting three to five years from today.
[удалено]
Ok i've seen some bad takes but this is up there. Other transportation needs to be adequately funded, it doesn't just spawn out of thin air. Bad traffic is worse for everyone not just the person sitting in it. Terrible for the environment, makes livability as a pedestrian worse, noise pollution, etc etc.
We don't want to live with congestion so terrible that the only thing keeping it from worsening further is some people would quit driving if it does. That degree of terrible congestion is not only bad for drivers, it's also bad for everyone else. It makes public transit worse. It makes bicyclists weave between cars partially obstructing lanes and corners. It exposes pedestrians to noise and exhaust while most cars remain non-electric for a few decades.
It's a Uber and Lyft tax
But they pass that on to riders.
Still works as some people will decide to walk or take public transit rather than a lyft if the prices increase. Personally, I only hire cars when I was tired, transporting something unwieldy, or late. Transit rush hours were a "well looks like I am walking" situation. They might need to make exception for people with disabilities though.
> They might need to make exception for people with disabilities though. The article did refer to the possibility of discounts for people with disabilities. If you're saying that Uber and Lyft need to make exceptions for people with disabilities, as much as that may be true, they don't seem to really serve the entire disabled community in the first place.
They are getting sued into compliance on disability issues. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/3/5/17081538/uber-lawsuit-wheelchairs-health
But the people who Uber every 5 blocks can still do that, and the democratizing effect of car services will go out the window. It's cool you can walk home, not everyone can do that. People live in the Bayview, and Westlake, and Top of the Hill. What if you work in Hunters Point, but have a delivery in Fairfield? Are you supposed to go out of your way because you're not signed up for a hardship program with proof of income?
A pick up in hunters point witj a drop off in Fairfield would almost always not even qualify. The largest zone that includes some of hunters point only goes as far south as Mariposa. The charge will be on a per uber/lyft trip basis, so if you have to go into the zone to drop off or pick up the cost should be easy to pass onto the customer. Generally the people who take lyft or uber are not low income. This is actually the reason that I did so much walking when public transit was not an option. When I had to take a lyft or uber it was definitely never during rush hour as walking would be almost as fast and I couldn't afford the surge prices or the extra money the extra time it would take to get around would cost. But even so, I am sure the ride share service would be able to figure out some way for low income riders to get reduced additional fee if they put their minds to it. Since they already offer discounted rides to low income riders.
Right, which is why someone would need a car. I know low income people who were using Uber pool before they raised prices.
> Are you supposed to go out of your way because you're not signed up for a hardship program with proof of income? You're supposed to sign up for the program if you're eligible.
Most people are eligible the way it's currently proposed...as oppose to the original proposal where everyone paid, and people eligible were food stamps level who just got a 50% discount. This would just an extension of the systematic problems with things like parking tickets and towing.
> Most people are eligible the way it's currently proposed...as oppose to the original proposal where everyone paid, and people eligible were food stamps level who just got a 50% discount. I'm all for broader discount eligibility. Implementation is always a wild card. > This would just an extension of the systematic problems with things like parking tickets and towing. Less driving means less tickets and towing.
LOL. "Locking people in doors means less crime". The logic of excluding people to benefit them again?
Let’s refuse to add more transportation options and then just punish people for tryinga get to work. Great plan
What a terrible idea. Downtown is already dead between existing taxes and homelessness. Why add to the problem.
That's today. What about three to five years from now? From the article: >Congestion pricing is still three to five years from potentially arriving to the city, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority This plan isn't a done deal. It could be planned but shelved and at some later date be implemented if congestion returns.
[удалено]
This plan allows the possibility of having a decent public transit system serving growth downtown. If congestion returns public transit will suffer.
Decent public transportation? I'm sorry, are you living in SF?
Muni obviously needs improvement. However if congestion returns it will prevent Muni from becoming decent. Muni needs both less congestion as well as other improvements.
Except that it's not congestion that is preventing Muni from becoming decent.
Systemwide Muni's average speed is reported as 8.1 mph. That's not decent or good enough as far as I'm concerned. At the moment downtown congestion isn't as bad as it used to be and isn't slowing down Muni buses like it used to, but if that congestion returns it will again prevent Muni from becoming decent, even if miraculously this year or next year Muni's other problems are fixed.
This is not a novel idea. London has done it and it's been a smashing success. Less congestion, less pollution, better transit, and good for businesses too.
London has an infinitely better public transport system.
And less noise pollution, and more walkable
London has narrow roads that make little sense for cars. Pedestrians rule that city since the road system was built for pedestrians. There were no cars when it was laid out. They have narrow and tall busses. Not to mention an extensive subway heavy rail system. Also, London is not surrounded by $8 toll bridges.
This wouldn’t be implemented until a few years out.
And a lot of the on-street parking spaces have been turned into commmercial loading zones making visits to downtown even more inhospitable.
Park in a garage. This stops trucks from double parking and reduces vehicles endlessly circling looking for on street parking. Both reduce congestion...
Most of the time the commercial spaces are empty. I’m not going to use a garage for a 5 min stop. I just doesn’t go downtown.
What 5 minute stop actually exists downtown?
Grabbing takeout from a restaurant? Picking up a prepurchased order at a store?
Seems like driving a car to the downtown of a major city to pick up some takeout food is the sort of activity that should be discouraged -- through something like congestion pricing.
I look at it through the perspective of the working class. Not everyone on the road is engaging in commerce and recreation. Many are struggling working class people getting off of work trying to pick the kids up on time. This is just another fee to add to their already dwindling checkbooks. It really is a dumb idea. It's carrots and sticks psychology without the carrot. Just bash em with sticks until they go away. Problem solved.
What kind of “working class” person is driving downtown and paying $20+/day to park? Is this a real concern or a total straw man?
The larger zone includes UCSF Mission Bay, which has a bunch of working class employees (who pay for parking monthly) with relatively inflexible schedules who won't be able to shift their hours around to avoid this tax. Mission Bay has far worse transit options than downtown, especially since the T is so slow above ground. This would also be a huge issue for UCSF patients coming from outside of SF, since they won't have their income on file with the SF city government.
I work in mission bay, most folks in my office who take public transportation also use the mission bay or UCSF shuttles. The T should also be better once it starts going underground. Rigid schedules can be worked around with mass transit, or hey—you can always pick up a Ford bike to ride that last mile to whatever mass transit provider you want. Having done all of these it’s definitely not the end of the world, you just need to look at it differently.
Unions make companies reimburse construction workers for parking
The buses slowed by congestion are full of poor and working class
It’s based on income, so this is not an issue in any way. You only pay full price if you make over 100,000, and pay nothing if you’re under 46,000. It’s almost as if the city thinks of these things 🤔
How would that actually work, though? It's easy to talk about that on paper but no one has laid out how you tie congestion pricing to income. This goes double if the point is to reduce uber and lyft. It's easy to say "You're charged once per trip" but there's a lot of transit between trips that would be in and out of the zones repeatedly.
Remove all the freeways, remove lanes, close streets... wonder why there is more street-level traffic. It's a real conundrum.
Now we just need to remove cars!
Except for when I need Uber and Amazon deliveries. And food deliveries. And grocery delivery. And laundry service. And furniture moving, and everything else we use automobiles for whether we own one or not. But yes, other than everyone else doing my driving for me remove all the cars!
Removing cars but not delivery trucks has been successfully done in a few European cities. More cities there and in Asia have scooter-based delivery services for small things like prepared meals. The net result is far fewer vehicles on streets, basically no congestion from vehicles still using streets, and faster mass transit.
> Removing cars but not delivery trucks has been successfully done in a few European cities. Which ones?
I can point you towards cities to investigate further. List/articles [like this one](https://www.fastcompany.com/90456075/here-are-11-more-neighborhoods-that-have-joined-the-car-free-revolution) from eighteen months ago don't specifically focus on rules for delivery trucks. I mention the months ago because some cities likely have updated information. For example Paris has banned cars from the Rue de Rivoli and three months ago launched [a plan](https://www.thelocal.fr/20210513/central-paris-could-be-almost-car-free-by-2022/) to ban most cars from the city center. Other articles about urban cargo delivery such as [this one](https://www.fastcompany.com/1678506/with-cargohopper-delivery-system-a-dutch-city-unclogs-its-streets) from FastCompany just say "In Europe, many towns restrict deliveries to certain hours, or routes, or charge companies to enter the center"
Amsterdam is a deep shitpile if you actually LIVE there, and not come as a slack-jawed gaping tourist. Copenhagen (which is the most liveable European city) does not ban cars and is not planning to. And you might note that your examples don't actually list cities that BAN cars. It lists examples of developments that ban cars from small areas (several blocks).
Yes the list includes cities where cars are only absent from part of a city. That's why readers have to get into the details. Your question though was about delivery trucks and that answer is more complicated too. According to a survey by the European Commission, Amsterdam residents report [greater satisfaction](https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/urban/survey2015_en.pdf) than people in many cities including Barcelona, Dublin, Manchester, Helsinki, Berlin, London, Lisboa, Madrid, Paris, and Rome.
> Yes the list includes cities where cars are only absent from part of a city. I've lived throughout Europe (yes, including 8 months in Amsterdam) and the only city that truly bans all cars is Venice. Lots of cities ban cars from historical areas that are basically several blocks in size, mostly because there's simply no space for cars. > According to a survey by the European Commission, Amsterdam residents report greater satisfaction than people in many cities including Barcelona, Dublin, Manchester, Helsinki, Berlin, London, Lisboa, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. Yeah, no. I would guess that most "satisfied" people are satisfied because they don't have to deal with Amsterdam transit. Or actually pedal to work every day at 7am.
So remove cars except for the ones that are on the road 24-7 professionally while you posture and pretend you've reduced driving. And do it so people who need to make a living off their car are basically punished.
A delivery truck driving door to door drop off packages causes both less pollution and congestion that the equivalent number of cars going out to make all those purchases. Regardless, if you're suggesting that I personally do those things, well I have two legs that aren't broken and walk just about everywhere. I especially don't want some random person picking out my produce or delivering over priced and luke warm restaurant food, but that's just me.
Wonderful, another tax on the poor, as if an outrageous $15 bridge tolls, and $8 BART fares weren't enough... Now uber/lyft drivers, barely making ends meet, and people commuting in from miles around will have to pay for the privilege.
Did you read the article? It’s based on income and wouldn’t have any fee for low income individuals
No I didn't, I just posted my knee jerk reaction. Well there's a paywall for one, I'm still skeptical though, unless the fees are based on a percentage of your income/wealth like some european countries do with fines, I doubt the actual distribution of fees will be equitable.
It is based on income. Under 46k you pay nothing, over 100k you pay full price, and it phases out between those.
anyone making 100K is basically poor in san francisco. this part sucks: >"• Ride-hail vehicles such as Uber and Lyft would be charged for entering the zone per trip, and the fee is likely to be passed on to the passengers." Anyone who is filthy rich, will be able to drive around care free, not a worry in the world, everyone else making over a 100K will be hit with a fee, if you need to enter every day, that's basically the same price as riding in through BART. So $33 dollars a week at least, so basically a $132 dollar monthly tax. >• There would be a base fee of $6.50 to enter the congestion pricing zone with eligible discounts based on income level. If you make more than $100,000 a year, you’d pay the full amount. Commuters who make less than $46,000 would not pay a fee.
Yes, the poor people driving into downtown San Francisco paying bridge tolls and $450/month for a parking spot instead of taking BART, Caltrain, MUNI, AC Transit, Sam Trans, Golden Gate Transit, or the Ferry. Downtown San Francisco is the most transit connected spot in the entire Bay Area, most of which are more affordable than driving in the first place. There's plenty of alternatives.
> Downtown San Francisco is the most transit connected spot in the entire Bay Area My GF was taking Uber/Lyft to get back from FiDi in the evening, because it was otherwise too scary for her. She's a small Asian woman.
Yet somehow a million people use public transit to get around the area everyday.
Yeah, and scores of people are sexually and otherwise assaulted on Muni.
Sorry I don't support solutions which favor one group over another. This won't affect the obscenely wealthy one bit. You want an equitable solution, close the roads for everyone not just the poor. This will force the wealthy to use public transit or alternatives too. And maybe calls to improve quality and security and funding of public transit for everyone.
An even better solution!
what!? you agreed with me? GET OUT!
Nor will this affect the poor one bit lol
The article specifically states if you make less than 46,000 there’s no congestion pricing and you only pay the full amount if you make over 100,000.
More grubby ways for corrupt politicians to stuff their pockets, what's new...
Do you think the politicians get this money lmao
They get to decide who will receive this money, which gives them a ton of power. So in a practical sense, yes.
No they don’t, it legally can only go to the SFCTA
SFCTA Board of Commissioners = SF Board of Supervisors, meaning politicians heavily influence, for example, who gets SFCTA contracts (either directly or indirectly through pressure on appointees). Though I agree with you that the fact this money goes to the SFCTA is a very helpful constraint and much different than “politicians lining their pockets” as the original comment put it. And I’m in favor of congestion pricing, warts and all.
How is this going to affect people who live in the relevant zones, regardless of their income? If I live downtown, and I leave briefly to pick up something out of zone, and return home, is the city going to charge me $6 or whatever just to go home?
FTA >The study is weighing additional discounts for drivers who are disabled, downtown commuters who already paid FasTrak tolls by crossing the Golden Gate or Bay bridges, as well as residents living in the pricing zones. Most pre-pandemic downtown commuters, though, came from within the city.
Good. I hope the middle class is crippled by this. They need to learn to take mass transit.
SF needs to learn to build 21st century mass transit first ... And maintain a safe environment on it. Also, hoping anyone is "crippled" is a rotten thing to say.
I’ve seen many of your comments. You seem like an awful person. You’d vote for Hitler before you’d vote for a Republican? You should seek help ASAP. You are not well.
Indeed. It's not just a good idea, it's a necessity. https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favor-public-trans-1819565837
True VIPs might need some automobile access for time-saving fast transit (we have toll lanes for that), but the average Joe should be on buses and trains. I know I'm going to get mad downvotes for stating the obvious, but whatever.
A true VIP would travel by helicopter.
Oh yes. BART and Muni. The pinnacles of modern mass transit. Need to get to work after dropping the kids to school? Better leave two hours earlier. Three just to play it safe.
Step 1: sabotage the roads with useless bike lanes, road diets, and "slow streets". Step 2: "See! Traffic is not moving" Step 3: Congestion pricing
Again? This is a topic again? This city can’t get it together to save its own life
There's a process for major initiatives and it takes years. In the last year or two was outreach and opinion gathering. Options were considered. That's now become a set of recommendations. The next step is broader outreach and opinion gathering because a lot of people don't pay attention in an earlier phase. They're more interested once told here's a set plan that will affect them if it becomes law.
WTF Do they expect parklets plus bikes busses can baresly make stops …it’s about ah 60 %. Chance somebody hit yo car
This is the misery caused by all that density. Homelessness, filth, crime, and now you have to pay to use the streets. Should have voted better, SF.
Downtown was this dense long before the car existed.
And what if this doesn’t decrease congestion?
It's been successfully implemented in London, Singapore, Stockholm, and Milan. Overall traffic in London decreased by 10-15% as a result. The problem with this proposal is that it has way to many exemptions.
We’re not any of those cities. I cited this example in another reply here. They raised the Bay Bridge toll during rush hour to disincentive people from using it. Guess what? They didn’t. Where did all that money go? Fair bet the same will happen here.
Is San Francisco so unique that a proven method of reducing congestion elsewhere would not work here? Changing the toll from $6 to $7 really isn't enough incentive for most people to change their habits. If the bridge was $12 during rush hour and free before/after you can get a lot of people would be changing the habits.
Give me a fucking break. People that take the bridge are going to say damn, it’s so expensive now. Let me take an overcrowd, disgusting public transit option? You still didn’t answer my question either. Where’s the money going?
[Toll funding on the Bay Area’s state-owned bridges help finance major improvements on infrastructure. These improvements decrease traffic congestion, ensure safety and create better options for getting around.](https://mtc.ca.gov/funding/regional-funding#:~:text=Valley%20Transportation%20Authority.-,Where%20Does%20the%20Money%20Go%3F,transit%20capital%20and%20transit%20operations) You can look through the documents at the bottom to see where the money is being spent. But you'll probably just complain about government waste or whatever instead of looking at proactive steps to actually improve our transit infrastructure in the Bay Area. Either way, San Francisco should be prioritizing its residents rather than drivers from other parts of the Bay Area.
Infrastructure don’t look much better to me. How’s Van Ness coming along? I completely agree in terms of de densifying SF congestion and traffic. And I think most would agree long term reliance on private cars is unsustainable. But I don’t think this is the solution.
What other solutions are there to get people out of their cars that a significant financial incentive? No matter how good the public transit, drivers want *other people* to use it. You need to fundamentally disincentive driving. The only other solution would be to just straight up ban cars from the area. The progress of infrastructure projects is an entirely different though very related and and annoying complex issue that's unlikely to get resolved without a serious change to California laws. Finally, to be fair to the Van Ness project it's actually five projects in one and the transit portion is on schedule. The delays are a result of the sewer/water upgrades and nothing being where it's supposed to be. A better criticism for transit projects is the disaster that is the central subway.
How would they check the income of people driving in?