It would be great to see more automatic payment and enforcement. It's great that buses can issue tickets for blocking bus lanes, but I would absolutely love for their to be more automatic enforcement of blocking bike lanes and meter violations.
I'm not in SF a lot these days, but I have noticed some particularly fancy parking meters that at least have tap-to-pay and might have more. Instead of a ticket, you should just be charged for how long you stay. And instead of a strict time limit, just raise the rates the longer you parks.
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.
If so, then the DMV test is (presumably) wrong. California Vehicle Code §21211 says it's generally illegal to block a bike lane:
"No person may place or park any bicycle, vehicle, or any other object upon any bikeway or bicycle path or trail, as specified in subdivision (a), which impedes or blocks the normal and reasonable movement of any bicyclist unless the placement or parking is necessary for safe operation or is otherwise in compliance with the law."
Checking the DMV handbook, their description is similar. They say "it is illegal to drive in a bicycle lane unless you are parking (where permitted)" - plus turning or entering/exiting the road. [Source: CA Driver's Handbook, pp. 17, emphasis mine]
Note that 21209 does not say "otherwise permitted" but "permitted." One interpratation (perhaps what the DMV is using) is that, since curb parking is generally permitted, parking in a bike lane that abuts the curb would also be generally permitted.
The city I live in put up "no parking in bike lane" signs everywhere, presumably to address this ambiguity.
FWIW the DMV test question was bad in other ways; it was a multiple choice asking "Which of these is not an illegal place to park:" with the correct answer being "in a bike lane." My daughter got it wrong not just because of not knowing the answer, but also because the double-negative confused her.
What was the double negative? You haven't included one in your telling of the question ("Which of these is not an illegal place to park:" with the correct answer being "in a bike lane." - that's just a single negative...)
Ah, I hadn't thought of illegal as counting for a double negative - it's not one for how I think, but I totally see both why you said it and why it would be a double negative for some people! Thanks for explaining
The DMV is unfortunately wrong about this, with an invalid interpretation of CVC - the DMV handbook is NOT the law (it's a simplistic layman's interpretation), and is not a valid legal defense.
That said, in SF proper it's absolutely inarguably illegal as a violation called "Obstructing traffic" in the SF transportation code. A bike lane is an active travel lane for vehicles as defined under the CVC (including bicycles), and therefore stopping in one is illegal just like stopping in a car lane. I've had drivers cited for this in the past.
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 "efficient" violations like street sweeping or expired meters by default (or perhaps directed by management).
This was years ago when I was younger and had more free time. I called SFMTA traffic directly (you learn the menu tree quickly). It varied but I want to say it usually took between 20 minutes to over an hour, including multiple callbacks to check on status and ensure they knew I was serious
Thank you for sharing that. It clears up my confusion. I thought perhaps you had found some magic way to get them to do something without you needing to disrupt your day.
It doesn't seem worth the time investment, as it won't have any effect beyond the particular incident you're reporting. It won't increase the threat of enforcement such that people decide not to break the law.
It is for light rail/trolleys (not buses) and only when you're on a two-way road and there's room to pass on the right. It also applies when they're moving, not just when they're stopped.
Basically, if a trolley/light rail has tracks in one of the left lanes of a two-way road, you must pass on the right unless directed otherwise by a traffic cop.
The reason is that these vehicles obstruct vision and you're not allowed to overtake and pass on the left when you can't see oncoming traffic or when approaching an intersection/grade/curve/oncoming traffic or your view of a bridge/viaduct/tunnel within 100 feet is obstructed.
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.
Yeah I think the intention is to prevent someone who disembarked from the bus and are then crossing the street from getting mowed down by a car overtaking from the bus's left. It's similar to why you can't pass a school bus when it has its stop sign out.
It was clearly a typo in the book. There’s even a diagram showing that people are loading from the right, and a sentence saying you pass on that side while passengers are loading.
If they meant “don’t pass while it is stopped”, they would have said that instead of writing the equivalent of “you can pass when [false]”
You only love it because you have some perverted dream of 100% enforcement of whatever your rules are. In reality automated enforcement would cause an uproar and the rules would be changed to accommodate the status quo.
I would much, much rather have the rules changed to reflect what we actually want them to be than to have bad rules that we only tolerate because we don't enforce them.
But on that note, I absolutely do think that people should pay to store their private property on public land, and that they shouldn't block bus lanes, bike lanes or cross walks, or run red lights, so I fully support those rules and automated enforcement of them.
Of course, but bad rules enforced imperfectly and good rules enforced perfectly are both categorically and morally superior to bad rules enforced perfectly because some extremist has fantasies of everyone goose stepping in perfect line.
That doesn't change the fact that the laws/rules/etc across all sorts of issues are all written half baked with the assumption that enforcers will be reasonable and all sorts of edge cases don't need to be supported.
The reason illegally parked vehicles are illegal is not because they are illegal, that's circular and the peddlers of that sort of logic should be derided if not marginalized. We care about illegally parked vehicles, littering, and all manner of public nuisances because of the downside to the public of said nuisance. Absent the downside there is no reason to care. And if you automate perfect enforcement you will be inundated with tickets for situations that lack downsides that the enforcers were mostly ignoring.
> think you’ll find this leads to infinite fine revenue and higher congestion in pretty much all cities
How? Laffer curve will max out as behaviour adjusts. And that adjustment means folks parking legally or forgoing a car or the area in question, not driving around in circles for fun.
I believe you are being downvoted because your comment violates the guidelines ("Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously... Edit out swipes."); anyway, that's why I downvoted.
Your later comment that enforcement might benefit from latitude to be reasonable and accommodate nuance is not invalid, and you could have just said that rather than call the gp's aspiration "perverted." The expressed norm of guidelines is that your belief that the gp's logic is circular does not justify your derision.
Anyway, you will probably be more convincing to others by being less insulting.
If you don't want to contribute in adherence to the guidelines, what is the point of posting here at all?
I'm being downvoted by being anything less then apologetically polite while expressing a viewpoint that isn't pro whatever the lowest common denominator wants.
That's just how comment sections that keep "rightthink score" are.
I couldn't downvote your direct reply to me, but if I could have I would have because you're being an ass. Calling me "perverted" because I don't think people should block bike lanes says way more about you than me.
Not wanting the bike lanes blocked is fine. The problem is that you want, as a means to this end, 100% enforcement of laws that were never written nor were their punishments apportioned with the expectation of such with zero regard for the consequences. That is a bad thing to be advocating for over such a mundane issue and I think it's belies a lack of moral character you often see in this subject of discussion (though you do see it in others and it's bad there too) wherein people want their preferred class of traffic prioritized using state force to the determent of all the others.
On the contrary, it is not a mundane issue. Traffic infractions and parking violations such as blocking bike lanes or crosswalks directly contribute to a less safe environment for everyone on the street. Traffic fatality is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States. It is the cavalier attitudes of people who think they should be able to whatever they want, whenever they want with their cars that belies a lack of moral character.
There is no social contract in scored internet comment sections. The herd will do what makes the number go up. If a large number of people showed up and upvoted every racist comment to the moon the verbiage in here would pivot almost overnight. Mobs don't have self awareness or free will.
I think you can't directly acknowledge the guidelines because you know you are willfully violating them.
The guidelines are the rules of the road for the community. The moral obligation to follow the guidelines is not conditional on whether you think the community is a mob. Even if you thought you have no obligation to the community, your behavior is still disrespectful to the intentions of the moderators.
The way you write makes it seem like you hold both the community and the guidelines in contempt. What is the purpose for you in participating in this community? Would it not be better for you and the community both if you stop posting like this?
I'm not in SF a lot these days, but I have noticed some particularly fancy parking meters that at least have tap-to-pay and might have more. Instead of a ticket, you should just be charged for how long you stay. And instead of a strict time limit, just raise the rates the longer you parks.