Parking in San Francisco

I don't know if parking in San Francisco is actually worse than it is in Portland, or if it just seems that way because it was unfamiliar to me. A week ago Saturday daughter and I borrowed my brother's van and headed downtown to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, which is a street that runs along the waterfront in downtown. We got to downtown on Mission. We drive by a parking garage across the street from Bloomingdales (which backs onto the Westfield Center, where we had lunch later on). It might be a good place to park, but I want to see just how far it is to the Ferry Building, so we drive on until we get there. It's not too far (about a mile), but the Embarcadero is a parking lot and it takes forever to get turned around and head back the way we came. We spot two parking garages on the way back, but one is a city garage and is closed for renovation and the other is only open on weekdays.

There are lots of parking meters, but they only take coins to the tune of $3.50 an hour, or some sort of card that you have to get beforehand from some unknown location. We finally spot a hotel with parking. The guy quotes me $10 for the first hour, and $4 an hour after that. Fine, we've been in the car for pert near two hours and I am ready to be out. Turns out the rate was $4 for each additional HALF-hour, which made our total parking bill $30 for three and a half hours. Fortunately they take credit cards.

We went out to eat a couple of times in Central San Francisco, not downtown, but busy areas. My brother drove. Sometimes we had to drive around five or six blocks before we could find a place to park, and it was always marginal. There are never any open parking spaces on business streets. It looks like there are lots of spaces on the surrounding residential streets, but they are actually driveways, fire hydrants or loading zones. Once we found a place to park between two driveways. Dan had to adjust the car twice to avoid impinging on the driveways. We are talking inches here.

Down in the Sunset, where he lives, it's a little better, but not much. Houses are built right next to each other, like row houses, but each one is a little different. Most houses have single garages and a single driveway. Sidewalks are wide, 15 feet minimum, and go from the street to the front of the house. Some houses, maybe half, have some kind of shrubs or flowers out front, but you are just as likely to see a car parked on the sidewalk. Once again you have the appearance of lots of available parking spaces on the street, but they are actually driveways. Lots of concrete, asphalt and stucco and virtually no grass.

The North-South streets are a normal width: four lanes, two traffic lanes in the center with one parking lane along each side. The East-West streets are like expressways: six or seven lanes wide, and they go for forever. I'm pretty sure I've seen these streets in the movies. There is very little traffic because every two blocks there is a stop sign. It's very odd. On one hand it feels very cramped, on the other it seems like there is an awful lot of space. Next time there is a boom here I would expect this area to be made over.

Don't leave anything valuable, or anything that looks like it could contain something valuable, like a paper bag, in your car because that is a recipe for having someone break into your car and steal it.


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