Tuesday is election day. You might recall that I blogged about a pair of confusing ballot initiatives: one which would increase funding for public transportation, the other which would suck money from public transportation and give it to developers to "create more parking spaces." Guess which ballot initiative has more money behind it, and, as a consequence, is mailing 4-color brochures of disinformation to my mailbox every day?
Cloaked under happy-sounding names like "The Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods" and "The Mission Group for Neighborhood Rights" (the Mission is a traditionally working-class neighborhood which intentionally makes this name particularly misleading), the anti-public transit people are sending mailings every day with soul-clutching headlines like "San Francisco Neighborhoods Need REAL Muni reform" and "If They Get Their Way, The Only Means of Transit Will Be Your Two Feet." Of course, this coalition is comprised of republican businesspeople and developers who want the money for public transit to go into their private development projects.
Their argument, which strikes at the heart of every self-interested, short-sighted modern citizen, is that we'll get more parking spaces "at no cost to the taxpayer" if we vote against proposition A and FOR proposition H. The reality is first, that if we used public transit more, we'd have less need for the parking spaces, and second, that we're losing neighborhood street parking all the time because private citizens are refinancing their homes and building garages under them....thus eliminating street parking in front of -- and adjacent to -- their buildings.
The spaces between each garage are seldom large enough to park more than a Smart car in them, if that. In fact, my neighborhood is constantly under construction, and even now, another homeowner is digging a hole in front of his otherwise-rickety building to create a garage for himself (see photo).
As an increasing number of people from the suburbs move here, there's been a tremendous increase in the number of super-sized cars on the streets, it's true. I've seen people move to an apartment building next door to a major Muni Metro station with a Cadillac Escalade parked in front....go figure! That's how I know the disinformation campaign will likely succeed.
People tend to be attracted by shiny objects. As proof, the people in my state elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, throwing out the guy they elected the year before, because a group of people in southern California suddenly started a ballot initiative to take him from Hollywood to the state government in a non-gubernatorial election year.
Here's the scoop, San Franciscans:
YES on A (money for public transit)
NO on H (sucking money from public transit and giving it to private developers)
Cloaked under happy-sounding names like "The Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods" and "The Mission Group for Neighborhood Rights" (the Mission is a traditionally working-class neighborhood which intentionally makes this name particularly misleading), the anti-public transit people are sending mailings every day with soul-clutching headlines like "San Francisco Neighborhoods Need REAL Muni reform" and "If They Get Their Way, The Only Means of Transit Will Be Your Two Feet." Of course, this coalition is comprised of republican businesspeople and developers who want the money for public transit to go into their private development projects.
Their argument, which strikes at the heart of every self-interested, short-sighted modern citizen, is that we'll get more parking spaces "at no cost to the taxpayer" if we vote against proposition A and FOR proposition H. The reality is first, that if we used public transit more, we'd have less need for the parking spaces, and second, that we're losing neighborhood street parking all the time because private citizens are refinancing their homes and building garages under them....thus eliminating street parking in front of -- and adjacent to -- their buildings.
The spaces between each garage are seldom large enough to park more than a Smart car in them, if that. In fact, my neighborhood is constantly under construction, and even now, another homeowner is digging a hole in front of his otherwise-rickety building to create a garage for himself (see photo).
As an increasing number of people from the suburbs move here, there's been a tremendous increase in the number of super-sized cars on the streets, it's true. I've seen people move to an apartment building next door to a major Muni Metro station with a Cadillac Escalade parked in front....go figure! That's how I know the disinformation campaign will likely succeed.
People tend to be attracted by shiny objects. As proof, the people in my state elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, throwing out the guy they elected the year before, because a group of people in southern California suddenly started a ballot initiative to take him from Hollywood to the state government in a non-gubernatorial election year.
Here's the scoop, San Franciscans:
YES on A (money for public transit)
NO on H (sucking money from public transit and giving it to private developers)
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