[bzmwillemsen]

Why would you actually want to increase the availability of parking spaces in San Fran? Increasing parking spaces will make driving easier, and when driving becomes easier then more people start driving, and when more people start driving you get ridiculous congestion. Make driving harder and you will have more people using alternative forms of transportation and less congestion.

[baddox]

Unfortunately, the ones who would remove parking spaces are the same ones that would need to build alternative forms of transportation (I'm talking about government). It's extremely limiting to not own a car (or have access to a car, e.g. through car share programs or rentals), even in San Francisco, unless you really just don't ever leave the city (and I mean even remotely leave the boundaries of the city).

According to Google Maps, a 14 minute drive from Powell Station to Oyster Point Park, just south of the city, is a 1 hour 11 minute bus ride, including 1.4 miles (28 minutes) of walking. A 5x difference.

Powell Station to Beach Park in Foster City is a 29 minute drive, or a 1 hour 39 minute Caltrain and bus trip (this time with minimal walking). A 3.4x difference.

Sure, these public transit trips are technically doable if you're not carrying anything or with anyone that precludes walking, but it's hard for me to imagine it being much worse than that for short trips in a densely populated area like the Bay Area.

I live in the city, don't own a car, and it sucks. Those two routes aren't pathological cases I searched for to make my point. They're just two recent places I wanted to go on weekends. I despise car culture too, but I also despise spending 20+% of my weekend waking hours on public transit if I actually want to go somewhere. It's either that or spend at least $40 a day on a Zipcar (which carries many of the same problems of car ownership, namely traffic and parking), or only go places serviced directly by MUNI or BART.

[JonFish85]

Exactly. Granted I don't live in SF, but I feel like this is a simple case of supply & demand. There is so much demand that a 33% increase in supply won't solve anything. Cars will fill those spots, the streets will be worse, and you'll be right back to square one. On top of that 33% increase, perhaps you throw some serious investment into parking garages and you might make a dent in the parking problem, but then suddenly traffic would make things just insane (I imagine).