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Golden Gate city levies killer fines
By Andrew Lam |
September 30, 2011, Friday
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"IF you are going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."
So goes the hit song from 1967 that painted the city as a mecca of openness and freedom. Today, however, the lyrics might go something like this: "If you are going to San Francisco, be sure to have lots of coins in your pocket and don't violate any traffic rules, or else: fines, fines, fines."
Not so poetic, admittedly, nor pretty. But neither are the heavy fines and ticketing efforts that are being waged here due to the budget crisis in a drawn-out recession.
Take parking violations. Tickets are already among the highest in the nation and proposals are in the works for a US$3 increase on parking violations, making a parking ticket a whopping US$68. Failing to move your car for the street cleaner could soon set you back US$58. But if you park in a "handicap" zone without a permit or at a bus loading area, you might as well give up your car. It will set you back US$976.
The cash-strapped Municipal Transportation Agency desperately needs revenue. Since taxation isn't going to do it, overzealous fine-levying will have to. San Francisco collected US$41.5 million in parking meter revenues, and about US$101 million in traffic fines this fiscal year. It projects to receive US$112 million from traffic fines for 2012 and that number is likely to increase if the recession won't let up.
But a San Franciscan doesn't need to own a car to face exorbitant fines. Early one morning recently on the metro platform at Embarcadero and Folsom, 20 inspectors in protective gear plus one bomb-sniffing dog swarmed the metro trains.
Armed with handheld Clipper card readers to detect passengers' electronic payment cards, they inspected everyone in sight, and those who didn't pay were asked to "Step outside, please!"
Jaded commuters seemed at best resigned to the disturbance, but a well-manicured older woman clutched her bag and city map to her chest as if she was about to be robbed.
When the train moved on, she said to her male companion, "Honestly, I thought we were having some kind of terrorists attack."
The person who was asked to "step outside" probably felt the same: Since his Clipper card didn't work, he was given a US$100 fine, raised from US$70 since last month.
Once intended to be a deterrent to bad behavior and infractions, ticketing and fines have become an important revenue stream in cash-strapped cities like San Francisco.
When news that parking meter violations might go up yet again, many angry readers wrote comments on SFgate.com, expressing their dismay and outrage.
Someone who claims to have worked once as an administrator for the San Francisco traffic fines bureau had this so say: "Fallacious logic of creating revenue for the city by outrageous parking fees is only reducing the revenue the city businesses both large and small would bring into the city coffers."
For the working poor, the system of heavy fines can quickly become something close to tragedy.
Such a strange vibration...
People in motion...
People are in motion, but for the majority it is a downward spiral.
And if there's a strange vibration to the city by the Bay, it's not one of freedom and openness - more like a slow, strangling feeling.
Andrew Lam is editor of New America Media and author of "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres" and "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. His next book, Birds of Paradise, is due out in 2013. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
So goes the hit song from 1967 that painted the city as a mecca of openness and freedom. Today, however, the lyrics might go something like this: "If you are going to San Francisco, be sure to have lots of coins in your pocket and don't violate any traffic rules, or else: fines, fines, fines."
Not so poetic, admittedly, nor pretty. But neither are the heavy fines and ticketing efforts that are being waged here due to the budget crisis in a drawn-out recession.
Take parking violations. Tickets are already among the highest in the nation and proposals are in the works for a US$3 increase on parking violations, making a parking ticket a whopping US$68. Failing to move your car for the street cleaner could soon set you back US$58. But if you park in a "handicap" zone without a permit or at a bus loading area, you might as well give up your car. It will set you back US$976.
The cash-strapped Municipal Transportation Agency desperately needs revenue. Since taxation isn't going to do it, overzealous fine-levying will have to. San Francisco collected US$41.5 million in parking meter revenues, and about US$101 million in traffic fines this fiscal year. It projects to receive US$112 million from traffic fines for 2012 and that number is likely to increase if the recession won't let up.
But a San Franciscan doesn't need to own a car to face exorbitant fines. Early one morning recently on the metro platform at Embarcadero and Folsom, 20 inspectors in protective gear plus one bomb-sniffing dog swarmed the metro trains.
Armed with handheld Clipper card readers to detect passengers' electronic payment cards, they inspected everyone in sight, and those who didn't pay were asked to "Step outside, please!"
Jaded commuters seemed at best resigned to the disturbance, but a well-manicured older woman clutched her bag and city map to her chest as if she was about to be robbed.
When the train moved on, she said to her male companion, "Honestly, I thought we were having some kind of terrorists attack."
The person who was asked to "step outside" probably felt the same: Since his Clipper card didn't work, he was given a US$100 fine, raised from US$70 since last month.
Once intended to be a deterrent to bad behavior and infractions, ticketing and fines have become an important revenue stream in cash-strapped cities like San Francisco.
When news that parking meter violations might go up yet again, many angry readers wrote comments on SFgate.com, expressing their dismay and outrage.
Someone who claims to have worked once as an administrator for the San Francisco traffic fines bureau had this so say: "Fallacious logic of creating revenue for the city by outrageous parking fees is only reducing the revenue the city businesses both large and small would bring into the city coffers."
For the working poor, the system of heavy fines can quickly become something close to tragedy.
Such a strange vibration...
People in motion...
People are in motion, but for the majority it is a downward spiral.
And if there's a strange vibration to the city by the Bay, it's not one of freedom and openness - more like a slow, strangling feeling.
Andrew Lam is editor of New America Media and author of "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres" and "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. His next book, Birds of Paradise, is due out in 2013. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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