What's Happening in San Francisco, CA…

San Francisco officials are considering measures to address two of the city's traffic concerns: street congestion, and parking problems.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is proposing measures that would change how many parking permits are issued to a household, as well considering ways to make cutting through neighborhoods more difficult.

SFMTA is considering cutting the number of permits issues to a household from four to two. It is also thinking about limiting permits to one per driver. The restrictions are being proposed as pilot programs in the Dogpatch and north Bernal Heights areas. In the latter, the SFMTA notes that there is no off-street parking available for almost half the homes, while the problem in the Dogpatch is that shoppers take up spaces needed by residents. Here, the proposal is to put a two-hour limit on parking.

The city also faces the problem of drivers leaving congested routes to cut through neighborhoods, a phenomenon SFMTA would solve by creating ‘Neighborways’. Engineering changes such as raised crosswalks would be made to the streets themselves to slow traffic down. The first proposed Neighborway is for Page Street, where heavy traffic is endangering students from John Muir Elementary School. Traffic on Page Street is currently running at about 5,500 vehicles per day, when the street is designed for only 1,500.

Efforts like this can benefit if officials work with flyer printing companies to create informative mailers for residents.