SFMTA parking woes
Dear Editor: The currently in-place and out of balance, heavy and excessively loaded parking and meter fees, tickets, fines, penalties etc., is already too much. Established by in-place and controlled by petty bureaucrats … and incompetent administrators.
More parking meters in our city is yet another tax stacked on top of inconvenience — more meters solves no problem: Like the slot machines they are, parking meters do little social good other than to collect money for “the house,” which is then squandered on creating and installing more of the same money pits where best they can.
It’s time we the people got something back in return other than more costly meters with contempt value. One simple parking ticket paid, for a “one minute over” violation, can rob a family the purchasing power the equivalent to 17 gallons of milk. A towed vehicle (for any reason or law) may destroy someone’s ability to support themselves. Not having the means to pay absurdly disproportionate penalty and fees, they lose the car. That, dear reader is theft, plain and simple!
Let’s have the meter persons park the trikes and sweep our streets. This will significantly improve our city’s cleanliness — quality of life — while reducing trike/motor maintenance, gas consumption, air and noise pollution, and other trike-related costs.
– Andrew C. Christie, The Marina
Marina Green
Dear Editor: The Marina Green on the north edge of the City has been a blessing for decades. With the simplicity of lawns and open space and pathways, both residents and visitors have always had a free place to relax, unwind, meditate, run and walk the dog. Generations of bicyclists and joggers have cruised its perimeter.
All this while striking a harmonious relationship with the adjoining neighborhood. The formula has fit perfectly. People come to recreate, site see, breathe ocean air, and move on. It quiets down at night, and the sounds of nature and the moody foghorn echo through the adjoining streets.
By commercializing the Marina Green, you change that. By adding a restaurant, the peaceful atmosphere of this quiet recreational space would be cut in half. The constant hustle-bustle of drinkers and diners parking then leaving; delivery trucks, trash and bottle recycling, prep and clean-up staff; the added social noise of groups eating and drinking well into the night, along with stragglers and policing alcohol-related problems.
There is Greens restaurant and cafes in Fort Mason and Crissy Field. A few blocks up, Chestnut and Union, Lombard and Fillmore offer a virtually endless array of choices of drinking and dining. There is already Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf.
Please, please leave the Green alone. It is an open space, that by just “being” offers everything.
– R. Calhoun, San Francisco
