San Francisco Traps Motorists In Painted Boxes
By James Donahue
It has been a few years since I have been in San Francisco. From what I hear from friends who have been caught up in a new anti-congestion effort involving painted boxes on roadways, I doubt if I will ever want to return . . . at least in my own car. People are receiving unexpected citations in the mail charging them with “blocking the box” and demanding payment of fines exceeding $100.
My personal friend received such a citation after driving an elderly lady to SF to receive a medical treatment for cancer. When she received the ticket in the mail she believed she was being improperly charged with illegally parking in the treatment center’s parking lot. But tracking the citation number on line proved that the charge involved an “improper turn” somewhere else in the city. Was that a mistake?
No, it appeared to involved stopping her car and waiting for a turn with a portion hanging over that painted box. How could this be?
Those who know SF are well aware of the traffic congestion problems there. The city was built long before contemporary traffic existed. People rode the historic trollies to get around on the narrow streets. Fighting the daily traffic jams moving in and out of SF, usually on the double-decked bridge from Oakland, was tedious but well worth the effort if we could find a parking garage and then jump a trolley on the way to the coast. The other way of getting into the city was on the BART system that takes you on a fast ride under the water between Oakland and San Francisco.
That was some 30 years ago. Traffic congestion must be much worse today so we can’t blame city traffic planners for taking steps to keep the endless line of vehicles moving. But painted boxes on the streets are a strange way of solving this problem.
Representatives of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) explained the boxes at a recent meeting of the SBRMBNA (an acronym for South Beach Rincon Mission Bay Neighborhood Association) as reported in Hoodline.com. The topics included problems of congestion and gridlock.
It was explained that the boxes are designed to stop bottlenecks on bike lanes, ambulance routes and traffic congestion problems during ball games, concerts and other big public events. Mayor Ed Lee launched a Congestion Management Plan in 2014 that included citations for blocking intersections and blocking intersections while turning. My friend apparently got caught up in the second one. She temporarily stopped her car in the wrong spot while negotiating a turn.
Recipients of these citations never know they are getting ticketed. The traffic officers snap pictures of the offending car’s license plate and write details of the infraction from where ever they are sheltered. Then the ticket is mailed to the owner of the vehicle.
The painted boxes are allegedly placed in areas where the city experiences the biggest bottlenecks.
City Traffic Commander Ann Mannix explained that these citations are recorded as parking violations even though they are in reality moving violations. Since the program has been successful, with some 5,000 tickets issued for blocking intersections, the law may soon be changed to make it a moving violation which goes against the driver’s record. Fines will increase from $110 to $263. So be warned SF drivers.
“We’re trying to ease congestion; we’re trying to make it safer for everyone to get around. What good does it do you to block the entire intersection? You’re not going to get there any faster,” Mannix said.
To us, something seems wrong with her explanation. Stopping at the edge of the box and waiting for the chance to complete a turn does not seem to involve an attempt to get someplace any faster.
Adding up 5,000 intersection tickets with fines of $110 each means the city enjoyed a revenue of about $550,000. And that is just for citations like my friend received. It seems that SF has found a new source of badly needed revenue at the expense of an unexpected class of drivers.
By James Donahue
It has been a few years since I have been in San Francisco. From what I hear from friends who have been caught up in a new anti-congestion effort involving painted boxes on roadways, I doubt if I will ever want to return . . . at least in my own car. People are receiving unexpected citations in the mail charging them with “blocking the box” and demanding payment of fines exceeding $100.
My personal friend received such a citation after driving an elderly lady to SF to receive a medical treatment for cancer. When she received the ticket in the mail she believed she was being improperly charged with illegally parking in the treatment center’s parking lot. But tracking the citation number on line proved that the charge involved an “improper turn” somewhere else in the city. Was that a mistake?
No, it appeared to involved stopping her car and waiting for a turn with a portion hanging over that painted box. How could this be?
Those who know SF are well aware of the traffic congestion problems there. The city was built long before contemporary traffic existed. People rode the historic trollies to get around on the narrow streets. Fighting the daily traffic jams moving in and out of SF, usually on the double-decked bridge from Oakland, was tedious but well worth the effort if we could find a parking garage and then jump a trolley on the way to the coast. The other way of getting into the city was on the BART system that takes you on a fast ride under the water between Oakland and San Francisco.
That was some 30 years ago. Traffic congestion must be much worse today so we can’t blame city traffic planners for taking steps to keep the endless line of vehicles moving. But painted boxes on the streets are a strange way of solving this problem.
Representatives of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) explained the boxes at a recent meeting of the SBRMBNA (an acronym for South Beach Rincon Mission Bay Neighborhood Association) as reported in Hoodline.com. The topics included problems of congestion and gridlock.
It was explained that the boxes are designed to stop bottlenecks on bike lanes, ambulance routes and traffic congestion problems during ball games, concerts and other big public events. Mayor Ed Lee launched a Congestion Management Plan in 2014 that included citations for blocking intersections and blocking intersections while turning. My friend apparently got caught up in the second one. She temporarily stopped her car in the wrong spot while negotiating a turn.
Recipients of these citations never know they are getting ticketed. The traffic officers snap pictures of the offending car’s license plate and write details of the infraction from where ever they are sheltered. Then the ticket is mailed to the owner of the vehicle.
The painted boxes are allegedly placed in areas where the city experiences the biggest bottlenecks.
City Traffic Commander Ann Mannix explained that these citations are recorded as parking violations even though they are in reality moving violations. Since the program has been successful, with some 5,000 tickets issued for blocking intersections, the law may soon be changed to make it a moving violation which goes against the driver’s record. Fines will increase from $110 to $263. So be warned SF drivers.
“We’re trying to ease congestion; we’re trying to make it safer for everyone to get around. What good does it do you to block the entire intersection? You’re not going to get there any faster,” Mannix said.
To us, something seems wrong with her explanation. Stopping at the edge of the box and waiting for the chance to complete a turn does not seem to involve an attempt to get someplace any faster.
Adding up 5,000 intersection tickets with fines of $110 each means the city enjoyed a revenue of about $550,000. And that is just for citations like my friend received. It seems that SF has found a new source of badly needed revenue at the expense of an unexpected class of drivers.