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On Wednesday evening the SFMTA will hold a community meeting about the agency’s much-debated plan to implement an experimental residential parking permit (RPP) system in northwest Bernal Heights. The meeting will happen on Wednesday, April 19 at 6:30 pm at Flynn Elementary School (3125 Cesar Chavez Street).

The postcard SFMTA sent to neighbors living in the proposed Northwest Bernal RPP zone says:

The SFMTA and Northwest Bernal Heights Residents invite you to a public meeting to discuss permit parking in Northwest Bernal Heights.

Residents on the following blocks have voted with over 51 percent to move forward with residential permit parking in Bernal Heights: Mirabel and Montezuma, Shotwell (1400-1599), Prospect (1-99), Esmeralda (200-299), Coso (1-299), Precita (1-299), Coleridge (1-99), Winfield (1-99), Lundy’s Lane (1-16) and Powers.

Please join use to hear details about next steps in the permit process, which includes a discussion about how this will affect residents in the area.

The Northwest Bernal RPP proposal, which started as a routine petition drive in 2015, has since become a polarizing exercise in  bungled communication, ad hoc rulemaking, and bureaucratic unaccountability.

After RPP petitions were collected from Bernal neighbors in 2016, SFMTA officials decided  Bernal Heights would become the test site for an experimental parking permit regime that de-emphasizes the impact of parking by non-Bernal residents to focus instead on curtailing parking by adjacent Bernal residents and restricting the number of parking permits each household may obtain within the RPP zone. Under the SFMTA’s experimental system for northwest Bernal, RPP permits would be limited to one RPP permit per driver, with a maximum of two RPP permits issued per household.

Advocates for the RPP zone say parking in northwest Bernal has become increasingly competitive because of daytime parking by non-residents, long-term parking by travelers, and residents who park in the street while using their garages for storage.

Opponents say SFMTA’s plan to use northwest Bernal as a test site was not disclosed in the original RPP petition drive, which renders those petitions invalid. After the petitions were received, SFMTA altered the requirements used to determine is whether a neighborhood qualifies to become a new RPP zone while repeatedly declining requests to define their new requirements. The agency has also faced allegations that SFMTA officials colluded inappropriately with RPP supporters by sharing private emails with RPP petition organizers.

As Bernalwood wrote last month:

The SFMTA is moving ahead with plans to use Bernal Heights as the site of an experimental Residential Parking Permit (RPP) scheme that will no longer emphasize preventing non-residents from parking on neighborhood streets. Instead, under the new system, the RPP program will also seek to limit the number of cars residents can park on the streets of their own neighborhood.

As previously reported, the SFMTA’s Bernal parking survey showed that roughly 70% of the cars parked on northwest Bernal streets on a typical weekday afternoon likely belong to other Bernal Heights residents. Under SFMTA’s longstanding rules, at least 50% of parked cars would have to belong to non-residents in order to establish a new RPP zone.

Yet after some residents organized a petition drive last year to establish a new RPP zone in northwest Bernal, the SFMTA moved its own goalposts. The 50% non-resident requirement was quietly disregarded, but SFMTA has not explained what the updated criteria for establishing a new RPP zone will be.

For current information about the Bernal RPP proposal, visit SFMTA’s Northwest Bernal Heights Residential Permit Parking Pilot page.

PHOTO: Top, by Telstar Logistics

The SFMTA is moving ahead with plans to use Bernal Heights as the site of an experimental Residential Parking Permit (RPP) scheme that will no longer emphasize preventing non-residents from parking on neighborhood streets. Instead, under the new system, the RPP program will also seek to limit the number of cars residents can park on the streets of their own neighborhood.

As previously reported, the SFMTA’s Bernal parking survey showed that roughly 70% of the cars parked on northwest Bernal streets on a typical weekday afternoon likely belong to other Bernal Heights residents. Under SFMTA’s longstanding rules, at least 50% of parked cars would have to belong to non-residents in order to establish a new RPP zone.

Yet after some residents organized a petition drive last year to establish a new RPP zone in northwest Bernal, the SFMTA moved its own goalposts. The 50% non-resident requirement was quietly disregarded, but SFMTA has not explained what the updated criteria for establishing a new RPP zone will be.

Since then, other San Francisco publications have shed more light on SFMTA’s intentions.  In mid-March, the San Francisco Examiner reported:

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing a stricter cap on residential parking permits issued in The City, from four permits to a household to perhaps only two, or maybe limited to one permit per driver.

The cap might make it possible for more parking to be found on San Francisco streets in neighborhoods where visitors cars park in “high rates” and displace residents’ cars.

“I don’t think anyone envisions this as being a silver bullet,” said Hank Willson, parking policy manager at the SFMTA. “But it certainly has the potential to help.”

The permit cap and other restrictions are part of a new pilot being proposed for a section of north Bernal Heights and in the Dogpatch.

Does northwest Bernal Heights have “high rates” of non-resident parking?  We have no idea, because SFMTA has repeatedly declined to specify what the non-resident parking threshold will be under their new rules.

A few days after the Examiner article ran, SF Bay News reported that the proposed Bernal Heights scheme isn’t really focused on non-resident parking. Instead, it mainly targets other Bernal Heights residents:

Kathryn Studwell, SFMTA program manager of the Residential Parking Permit (RPP) program, said the transit agency will test out the pilots to measure if they improve parking availability in the neighborhoods and see how residents in the pilots react first before going citywide with the proposals.

One pilot the transit agency is proposing is on the northwest side of Bernal Heights, where the parking occupancy averages around 90 percent on weekdays and weekends, according to SFMTA documents.

The pilot would cap the number of permits from four permits per household to one permit per driver and two permits per household.

In survey conducted by the SFMTA, 95 percent of residents own a private vehicle in the area, but nearly 50 percent of homes do not have off-street parking.

These details were not shared with Bernal Heights residents when the initial petition drive was organized, and several neighbors have written to Bernalwood privately to complain about a SFMTA “bait and switch.” Because of the new, uncertain, and ambiguous rules, they say, the old petition should not be considered valid and a new petition should be required.

SF Bay News adds:

Both Bernal Heights and Dogpatch parking permit pilots would need to go before the SFMTA Board of Directors before staff can implement the pilots.

Studwell said she plans get the Bernal Heights pilot to the Board of Directors for approval sometime in the summer.

There’s been plenty of confusion surrounding the proposal to create a new Residential Parking Permit (RPP) zone in northwest Bernal Heights.  There’s been a bunch of community meetings, and a petition drive, and yet another community meeting, as well as some controversy surrounding the data the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) uses to determine northwest Bernal qualifies as a new RPP zone.

Things got even weirder in January, when SFMTA quietly changed its published requirements for establishing new RPP zones. In December, the requirements published on the SFMTA website to create a new RPP zone were:

To create a new Residential Permit Parking Area, a petition signed by at least 250 households (one signature per household) in the proposed area must be submitted to the SFMTA. See “Expand an Existing Permit Area” for petition forms.

Requirements

• The proposed block(s) must be contiguous to each other and must contain a minimum of one mile of street frontage.
• The proposed block(s) must be of a low- or medium-density residential character — high-density land use is generally not suitable for RPP
• At least fifty percent of the vehicles parked on the street in the proposed area must be non-resident vehicles.
• At least eighty percent of the legal on-street parking spaces within the proposed area are occupied during the day.

Today, however, if you go visit the same SFMTA webpage, the requirements are completely different.

The new requirements are:

Requirements

To create a new Residential Permit Parking Area, a petition signed by at least 250 households or 50 percent of the residential units in the residential area proposed for designation (one signature per household) must be submitted. See “Expand an Existing Permit Area” for petition forms.

San Francisco’s Transportation Code has specific critera for designating a Residental Parking Permit Area. Per the Transportation Code, in determining whether to recommend that a residential area be designated as a Residental Parking Permit Area, the City Traffic Engineer shall take into account factors which include, but are not limited to the following:

• The extent of the desire and need of the residents for residential parking permits and their willingness to bear the resulting administrative costs even if the SFMTA does so on its own initiative.
• The extent to which legal on-street parking spaces are occupied during the period proposed for parking restrictions;
• The extent to which vehicles parking in the area during the times of the proposed parking restrictions are not registered to residents of proposed Residential Parking Permit Area; and
• The extent to which motor vehicles registered to persons residing in the residential area cannot be accommodated by the number of available off-street parking spaces.

So if it seems like SFMTA completely moved the goalposts halfway through the process of determining whether or not to establish a new RPP zone on northeast Bernal Heights, that’s because SFMTA did in fact completely move the goalposts halfway through the process of determining whether or not to establish a new RPP zone in northwest Bernal Heights.

Bernalwood reached out to Hank Willson, Manager of Parking Policy at SFMTA to explain what’s going on. Wilson tells Bernalwood:

The SFMTA is many months into its Residential Parking Evaluation and Reform Project, and that project has revealed some issues with the existing RPP program and process. The timing for North Bernal petition means it is the first entirely new area to be proposed since we’ve started drawing conclusions and formulating potential policies as part of the Reform Project. As it happens (and not unexpectedly), many of the key issues we’ve identified through the Reform Project show up in North Bernal, including:

1. Parking impacts may be driven as much or more by internal than external demand, but RPP regulations only limit external demand
2. Requiring petitions and signature collections before gathering parking data can make neighbors feel like they did a lot of work for naught
3. Regulating some streets and not others risks pitting neighbor against neighbor
4. Regulating some streets and not others risks moving the parking impacts to those blocks that are not included

We are keeping these issues in mind as we analyze the data gathered for North Bernal and hear questions and concerns from neighbors. The Reform Project has proposed potential policy solutions for each of these issues, and we’re currently talking internally to see if any of those proposals would be useful for North Bernal.

You can learn more about the Reform Project here.

OK, so in practical terms then, what does this reform effort mean for Bernal Heights, and the possibility of creating a new northwest Bernal RPP?

Bernalwood sent a series of questions to SFMTA about this, and late last week we received a reply from Kathryn Studwell, SFMTA’s Residential Parking Policy program manager.

Bernalwood: When was the RPP reform project initiated and what SFMTA staff is managing it? Will the public have the opportunity to comment on the proposed rule-changes before the reform proposal in implemented?

SFMTA: The RPP Reform Project started in summer 2014. In the following 12 – 15 months we conducted a comprehensive analysis of existing conditions relative to on-street parking in residential areas. Our project website went live in November 2015 when we began our four-phased public engagement program. I encourage you to visit the site as it has very informative research findings, presentations, and blogs. At this point, we have completed a 3 phase public engagement program involving a citywide household survey, five open houses, 15+ community workshops and meetings, including one workshop in each Supervisorial District, two focus groups and several public presentations. The District 9 community workshop was held on Thursday, May 19th, 2017 at CCSF on Valencia Street.

Bernalwood: It’s still unclear what specific, quantitative criteria SFMTA will use to determine if a proposed new RPP zone will qualify for inclusion in the program. For example, what is the threshold requirement for non-resident cars under the new framework?

SFMTA: We have not completed our evaluation of alternative policy approaches to reforming the RPP program. As you may imagine, any changes to the program impact several departments within SFMTA and we are working with all of them to make sure possible policy changes are both effective in achieving our goals and can be implemented with existing staffing and technologies. One early conclusion, however, is that we want to focus more on comprehensive neighborhood parking management rather than use of a single tool, such as RPP. While some streets are better managed with RPP, others are more suited to general time limits or paid parking. The specific tool used depends on the particular context. So by moving towards a more holistic approach to managing on-street parking, we would not need to use rigid thresholds to determine eligibility for one approach or another.

Bernalwood: So what’s the status of the Bernal Heights RPP now, given that SFMTA appears to have mooted its own requirements for creating a new RPP zone under the auspices of the reform project?

SFMTA: We are completing our analysis of petitions and parking occupancy and are getting ready to schedule another community meeting for later in the spring.

Stay tuned, but in the meantime SFMTA is posting documents and details about the proposed Northwest Bernal RPP Zone on it’s website.

In the comments to last week’s post about the community meeting held on Dec. 7 to discuss the implementation of a Residential Parking Permit (RPP) area in portions of northwest Bernal, an astute Bernalwood reader noticed something odd: The proposed Bernal permit area does not appear to meet a SFMTA’s requirement for establishing a new RPP zone.

As Neighbor Rebecca points out, the SFMTA’s published requirements for creating a new RPP area are as follows:

To create a new Residential Permit Parking Area, a petition signed by at least 250 households (one signature per household) in the proposed area must be submitted to the SFMTA. See “Expand an Existing Permit Area” for petition forms.

Requirements

• The proposed block(s) must be contiguous to each other and must contain a minimum of one mile of street frontage.
• The proposed block(s) must be of a low- or medium-density residential character — high-density land use is generally not suitable for RPP
• At least fifty percent of the vehicles parked on the street in the proposed area must be non-resident vehicles.
• At least eighty percent of the legal on-street parking spaces within the proposed area are occupied during the day.

That third point is of interest:”At least fifty percent of the vehicles parked on the street in the proposed area must be non-resident vehicles.”

During the December 7 community meeting, the SFMTA released the results of its survey of vehicles parked in northwest Bernal Heights. The survey showed that no more than 33% of the vehicles parked in northwest Bernal belong to non-residents — a ratio well below the 50% required under the RPP rules. (In the evening, the percentage of non-resident vehicles drops to about 23%.)

Meanwhile, the SFMTA data shows that the percentage  of vehicles belonging to Bernal residents who live less than 1/4 mile away from where their cars were parked in northwest Bernal ranges from a weekday low of 67% to as much as 80% during predawn morning hours:

Bernalwood reached out to the SFMTA three times over the course of the last four workdays to seek clarification on the apparent discrepancy between the agency’s moves to establish a new northwest Bernal RPP zone, the SFMTA’s published non-resident vehicle percentage requirement to create a new RPP area, and the SFMTA own vehicle survey data which indicates northwest Bernal does not meet the non-resident percentage requirement to become a RPP zone.

SFMTA has acknowledged these requests, but clarification has not been forthcoming.

As you may recall, there was a big community meeting last week to discuss the creation of a new Residential Parking Permit (RPP) zone in Northwest Bernal Heights. The effort to create an RPP zone was initiated by some Bernal neighbors, yet now that that the plan is closer to becoming a reality, the conversations for and against the proposal have become more intense.

Neighbor Peter attended last week’s meeting, and he shared these excellent notes:

Notes on the North East Bernal RPP Petition meeting
at Flynn Elementary
Dec. 7, 2016

The Flynn cafeteria was surprisingly full of people for a rainy December night. Standing room only suggested to me a high degree of community interest in the topic. The attendees seemed to be a reasonably equal mix of people in favor, people against and ‘undecideds’ wanting more information about the proposed RPP zone. This was evidenced by relatively sparse ‘yays’ and ‘boos’ for any typical cheer-lines that might have garnered a crowd reaction. There was a table with SFMTA brochures comment forms. Also, there were large printed graphics showing the proposed RPP area and an analysis done by the city of resident vs. non-resident vehicles parked in NE Bernal:

SFMTA Presentation
The presenter described what a wonderful thing RPP has been for San Francisco ever since Telegraph Hill implemented it all those years ago. The city has been more and more successful in bringing it to areas that do not have it, culminating in the elimination of one of the last free parking ‘doughnut holes’ (her words) around Alamo Square recently. RPP has been the start of many Neighborhood associations etc.

The SFMTA Presenter seemed clearly in favor of RPP and was essentially making a pitch to the adjoining streets to join the current ‘blue street’ zone being proposed. This was evidenced by the presenter repeatedly pointing out Prospect St and saying ‘I’m worried about you guys, you better get on board quick!’.

The purpose of this meeting was primarily to inform the public/surrounding streets about the petition and the process the city follows to grant a RPP area. The presenter explained how each of the criteria so far had been met:

• What the neighbors did to get enough ‘yes’ signatures to proceed. 250 ‘yes’ were required, 270 were obtained. >50% of households in the blue area voted ‘yes’.
• Talked about the process of getting the ‘Parking Utilization’ data. Took photos of cars on the street to determine the percent of residents parking in the area (The result: 80% of parked cars belong to residents).
• She clarified that one mile of street minimum is needed for an RPP zone to be established. It seems that the zone in Bernal has met the minimum area.
• While there are a few more steps in the process to clear, it would take 3-6 months to fully implement the RPP plan: put up street signs, issue permits etc. The presenter seemed to suggest that this was not a completely done deal yet, as the city still needed to give final approval. I can’t confirm this is a fact though, it was a bit vague. (Editor’s Note: Bernalwood got a little more clarity on this issue; additional details are provided at the end of this post.)

No evidence was presented that showed parking has gotten worse in recent years. While it was clear that the SFMTA wants to push this program, it was not made clear why.

Questions, Answers and General Comments from the public
This was mostly civil, and very little aggression was expressed beyond a couple of brief outbursts. A couple of comments included a Lyft driver/local neighbor who said that he regularly takes people to the airport who drop off their car in the neighborhood. There was some concern that notification cards had not been sent out adequately, in particular neighbors on Lundys street said they never heard about the plan and didn’t get notified. Some wanted to be included, but felt there hadn’t been much outreach. There were quite a few questions asked and all answers were given by the presenter:

Q: Doesn’t the 72 hour rule eliminate the need for RPP?
A: The ‘72 hour rule’ is meant for abandoned, broken down and stolen cars in the eyes of the MTA. Therefore they don’t enforce it much. Claimed people abuse this to call against neighbors and tried to downplay this as a means of solving the ‘vacationer parking’ problem.

Q: A neighbor on Mission street (where there are parking meters) asked if he could get a permit and park in the RPP zone.
A: Yes, all neighbors on adjoining streets with parking meters (i.e. Mission St and Cesar Chavez) may obtain an RPP permit for the new zone.

Q: Could street sweeping be implemented instead of RPP?
A: Some streets are too narrow and don’t qualify (width minimum not given).

Q: could the graph be interpreted as there is a much greater interest in NOT getting RPP based on the number of streets that did NOT sign on?
A: Yes, that is one way of interpreting it. But keep in mind, these neighbors do want it (blue streets).  A neighbor with a computer then shared a stat from the petition summary that showed only 18% of units in the NE Bernal Canvas area (outlined by the dotted yellow line) voted ‘yes’ for an RPP Zone, the remainder voted ‘no’ or did not vote. This information was not shared with the entire group, just near the person who asked the question. The data seems to confirm this.

Q: If I live just outside the zone, and my neighbor lives just inside of it, does this mean that she can park in front of my house, but I can’t park in front of hers?
A: Yes. Follow up Q: ‘Well that doesn’t sound very fair’. The SFMTA presenter replied with a chuckle ‘Well, life isn’t fair’ (her words verbatim).

Q: If 80% of the parking is done by people who are residents of the neighborhood (as demonstrated in presentation.) how can you say there is a problem that needs RPP?
A: Every spot counts, RPP will make those extra spots available.

Q: Are the times fixed once RPP is established?
A: No, parking hours can be changed: 1-4 hours, weekdays only or with weekends added. Start and finish times can be adjusted, but no restrictions on overnight parking.

Q: I visited Chicago recently and there they have night parking restrictions which addresses the parking problem much more adequately, is there any plan for that?
A: We’ve talked about it, it’s a great idea, but putting that into action is a long way off.

Q: Can we expand RPP to our street too?
A: Yes, you need to get over %50 of the units on your block to vote ‘yes’. If there are 100 units total, you need 51 to say ‘yes’. It is not a ‘yes’ total vs ‘no’ total. The street also needs to be connected to the pre-established zone.

Q: Can RPP be ‘undone’ in the same way that it can be expanded?
A: Yes. If a re-canvasing is done on a given street and fewer than 50% vote ‘yes’ the street can be eliminated from the program. The total area of streets must maintain a minimum one mile for the permit program to continue. Eliminating RPP in an area has been done just once before.


Q: How much are permits?
A: Price of permit is $127 a year per passenger vehicle and will be going up next year (new price not mentioned).

Q: How many permits can you buy?
A: Currently any individual house may purchase up to 4 residential permits. The reason for this is to accommodate roommate situations, not the car collectors, but they benefit too. The presenter suggested that at some point the MTA might try to switch it to one permit per licensed driver per house, but it was only in the idea phase, no proposal on the table currently.

Q: Do the red ‘Scoot’ motorbikes need a permit to park in the RPP zone?
A: No permit is required for motorbikes, personal or private, so long as they fit in a spot that a car could not reasonably take. A space of 9 ft or less was mentioned. (Note: online I saw that motorcycles DO require permits and cost $95 annually, not sure how this jives with what the presenter said.)

Q: A neighbor asked about the possibility of friends coming over and parking over the limit in the zone.
A: Yes, you can get a permit for guests/contractors etc. They are $5 a day for the first one and get more expensive from there. The more you want, the more you pay! When you request your 10th pass it is $7, $10 per pas beyond 20 passes.

Q: I’m concerned about cyber security and do not wish to put my info online, can I get printed documents regarding this plan?
A: Yes, please call us and we will send you info by mail.

Small Group Discussions
The presenter had us break up into groups by street to share our thoughts. I had a very nice chat with some of my neighbors afterward, all of whom were in favor of RPP. It was noted that the city is responsible for eliminating quite a few local parking spots, most recently to create the bike lanes on Valencia between Mission and Chavez. It seems that many fear parking has gotten out of hand due to the new hospital on Guerrero and Chavez. One woman who voted ‘yes’ commented to me ‘This RPP is a terrible idea, I admit. But what else can we do?’ It was suggested (by me) that requesting increased street sweeping, pressuring the city to allow street sweeping on all but the narrowest of streets, and having SFMTA change their policy on 72 hour parking to affect ‘non neighbor, vacationers’ would do a lot to alleviate the situation. This would also eliminate the neighbor to neighbor antagonism that is created with the start of RPP and ends up with everyone buying in due to the negative effects the zone creates.

It was great to meet and chat with everyone at the end. Though we didn’t see eye to eye, everyone was very reasonable and considerate of each other’s opinions and viewpoints.

I really hope that there is still some scope for neighbor input though, particularly since those near, but outside the zone will be negatively impacted by it. I don’t think neighbors in the zone were reasonably informed that this plan may not make parking easier for them — while simultaneously making parking worse for others. I live just outside the canvas zone on Coleridge, but I see the snake slithering this way and would love to send it back to where it came from. It was clear to me in the small group session that neighbors on Coleridge voted ‘yes’ having been sold a bill of goods from the main proponents of this plan. The misinformation about the ‘benefits’ of RPP was evident.

Bernalwood followed-up with the SFMTA to learn more about the next steps in the RPP process. Here’s what happens now, according to SFMTA:

• Revise proposal to reflect tonight’s input
• If needed, hold another community mtg.
• Begin the legislative process
  a) SFMTA staff meetings
  b) Interagency staff meetings
  c) Public hearings
  d) Presentation to SFMTA Board of Directors

Neighbors who wish to express an opinion on the proposed RPP can do so via the SFMTA survey for northwest Bernal, and additional documentation about the Bernal Heights proposal is available on the SFMTA website.