Our buddies in Baghdad by the Bay at least aren’t hiding it. They come right out and say it. They need more money so they are raising parking fees. Here is an excerpt from the Examiner.com:
An unpopular proposal to increase meter rates citywide by 50 cents has been shelved by Muni officials, who are counting, instead, on a program of costlier parking stays during peak travel times in certain parts of The City to help make up a budget shortfall.
Initially projected to have an $81 million shortfall over the next two fiscal years, the SFMTA has reconciled that gap in part by adding $10 to all parking fines, implementing a $10 raise to Muni’s 30-day Fast Pass and increasing costs for residential parking permits. On Tuesday, the increases will be voted on, within a two-year budget proposal, by the department’s board of directors.
I wonder if it occurred to anyone at the MUNI to simply work on lowering their costs. Of course they are using parking fees to provide low cost busses and other rapid transit in the city. And, when the concept works and people starting taking the bus and the number of parkers goes down, one could assume that revenue will drop, too. Whoops.
So they will raise bus tickets and people will go back to driving…
JVH
One Response
Even though I write a blog about MUNI and do believe it needs to be both better funded and run more efficiently, I think relying on parking tickets as a tax is a terrible terrible idea.
It’s one of those tricky accountant tricks that makes people think they’re getting “more money” for MUNI when in fact they’re just making things worse in the long run. Plus, parking tickets should not be issued to make money – they should be issued only if someone is breaking the law or doing something that’s causing a traffic hazard.
http://www.njudahchronicles.com/2008/03/post_12.html