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Find SF parking cops

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Re: Find SF parking cops

#171

Post by jfim »

whakim wrote: post #162
gboss wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense. It was ridiculous that they were originally proposing ticketing people without there being signage that it was illegal to park there. They need to just paint the curbs.

Why? Having a driver's license is a privilege that requires you to study and know the rules of the road. The onus is on you to know the rules.

There are also international tourists who may have different local parking rules than the ones in SF. Having clear demarcations between allowed and non allowed parking areas makes it easier for everyone to follow the correct rules.

Re: Find SF parking cops

#172

Post by buckle8017 »

deathanatos wrote: post #96
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

SF has dedicated commercial loading zones, for large deliveries. (Or, for some of the larger buildings, they just have an underground or partially underground loading dock.) For things like Uber, yes, one would need to find a parking spot, not park in an active lane of traffic ¹. If either are insufficient, people are free to lobby for more, where they are needed. (¹and as bike lanes are not wide enough to accommodat…

Commercial loading zones only for major retailers.

Re: Find SF parking cops

#173

Post by godelski »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #157
RyanOD wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've seen some of this. While it certainly helps, it seems like a waste of limited resources. Why can't some people just follow such a simple rule?

Waste of what resources? If anything I'd expect the sidewalk to be cheaper.

There's a difference between starting from scratch and modifying existing infrastructure

Re: Find SF parking cops

#174

Post by scottbez1 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #143
scottbez1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ridiculous to ticket someone who parks in the middle of Market St if there's no sign that it's illegal? No. Driving a car is a privilege, and a dangerous one at that, which requires a competency test. It is not unreasonable to expect licensed drivers to know the statewide laws that govern that privilege without reminder signs.

While I agree on this, the US is a bit special as having a car is considered mandatory. IMHO, that culture needs to be changed: better public transport and walkable cities. When that is established, then it is also easier to revoke the drivers privilege.

In some ways, yes, though not in many cities like SF, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, etc.

But it's also a chicken and egg problem: often transit is not viable or is too slow precisely because everything is devoted to cars. The SF Van Ness BRT is an excellent example - I used to routinely get off the 49 bus and walk faster than it stuck in car traffic, but after the BRT the bus is a much better and faster experience than driving could ever be.

One of the most common reasons for watering down or canceling pedestrian, transit, and biking infra projects is a refusal to negatively impact driving in any way, even if the net societal benefit (especially to lower income households who take transit at much higher rates) is far greater.

Good governance requires sometimes unpopular choices (see Paris's recent bicycle transformation, or SF's recent recall election over the creation of a new public park in place of a redundant street)

Re: Find SF parking cops

#177

Post by primitivesuave »

Arch-TK wrote: post #92
primitivesuave wrote: post #62

I did a fascinating analysis of SFMTA data a few years back. They posted a public list of names and license plates [1] that they refuse to take down, despite many emails from me over the years. I found a particular license plate that belonged to a plumber with an impeccable 5 star reputation on Yelp, whose business in SF was effectively ended by street sweeping fines. He accidentally paid the same ticket twice, which…

I'm curious, how did his name being on this list significantly affect his business? I live in a different country and I can't imagine checking the "traffic fine registry PDF on a random government website" when considering which plumber to hire. I don't doubt that this caused him problems, I'm just trying to understand how.

I should have clarified - I only found his business through that list because I noticed his vanity license plate HPPYPPS, which corresponded to a business named Happy Pipes Plumbing which I subsequently found on Yelp.

Also, I found out about his van getting towed because I scraped towing records from Autoreturn (the city's main towing provider - lots of corruption around that deal). Autoreturn's website at the time had a query parameter like "?towid=1", so you could increment that to pull all towing records.

I started working on a pretty in-depth data analysis and visualization, similar to what was done here, but I got caught up with my day job and some rock climbing dreams. I handed over all my research to a few local reporters a while back - they were really excited to talk to me in person about it, but I haven't seen anything published since.

Re: Find SF parking cops

#178

Post by rahimnathwani »

scottbez1 wrote: post #151
rahimnathwani wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had drivers cited for this in the past. I'm curious how you've managed to achieve this? I haven't found SF311 very responsive to requests related to illegal parking. Even if they respond, wouldn't the car be gone by the time they show up?

Yeah, they ignore SF311 reports by policy. I've managed it by flagging down an amazingly helpful parking control officer that happened to be in the area, or else by calling and reporting an obstruction of traffic (not mentioning the bike lane) and then waiting until the PCO arrived and talking to them. The officers have almost always been helpful, but I think they generally tend towards lower confrontation and more "…

  by calling and reporting an obstruction of traffic
Would you be able to share the rough process, and how long it usually takes?

e.g.

- Do you call 311 or a different number?

- How soon have you had someone arrive at the scene?

Re: Find SF parking cops

#179

Post by odensc »

jonahx wrote: post #79

What's funny is secure IDs could have easily prevented this but, even if the city discovers it and wants to shut it down now, I'd bet actually fixing the system would be too costly (IDs tend to couple to everything).

Pretty simple fix: require more data to look up a citation, like the number, issue date and plate/VIN (this is how my city does it). Technically doesn't make the scraping impossible if you wanna try every permutation of a license plate, but makes it mostly infeasible.

Currently it just requires the sequential citation number [1], which is how the data is being scraped so easily.

[1]: https://wmq.etimspayments.com/pbw/include/sanfrancisco/input...

Re: Find SF parking cops

#180

Post by voxic11 »

hedora wrote: post #89
aidenn0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it illegal to block bike lanes in SF? I ask because it is not illegal to do so in California, according to the learner's permit test my daughter recently took.

I read the driver’s manual a few years ago. Fun fact: If there’s a bus or trolley car picking up passengers at the curb, you must pass it on the right in CA. I’m almost tempted to try it when there’s no one but a cop around, and then hand the book to them when they pull me over for driving on the sidewalk.

I don't think needing to pass on the right is a defense against driving on the sidewalk. I think it just implies that you cannot pass while they are picking up passengers.
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