Car owners in Hayes Valley will not stand by as "their" parking spaces are usurped by safe streets measures and "foreign" car-share "corporations" from places like "Delaware" and "Canada."
That's according a couple of bizarre anonymous flyers spotted recently around the neighborhood that appear to take aim at the arrival of on-street car-share parking spaces and plans to make crosswalks safer with daylighting and sidewalk bulb-outs.
On the subject of car-share spaces -- each of which, by the way, helps people let go of owning a private car -- one barely-coherent flyer has this to say:
STREET PARKING BELONGS TO HAYES VALLEY RESIDENTS NOT TO FOREIGN (CANADA-- GETAROUND---ZIPCAR HERTZ A DELWARE CORPORATION EXEMPT FROM PARKING TICKETS
At the risk of taking this all too seriously, a quick Google search reveals that Getaround, which lets people rent their cars to their neighbors, is based in San Francisco, though its vice president of marketing was born in Canada (A-HA!). ZipCar is based in Boston, and owned by New Jersey-based Avis, not Florida-based Hertz -- but we digress.
No word yet on whether the car owners who take up the other 99 percent of Hayes Valley's curb spaces are 100 percent native San Franciscans with a legitimate birthright to free parking.
As for the flyer opposing the SFMTA's plans to daylight up to 30 parking spots to improve visibility between drivers and pedestrians:
JUST SAY NO! No removal of any parking spaces in HAYES VALLEY
Parking belongs to the citizens -businesses--taxpayers & voters!
Major Person(s) responsible for proposed 30 parking spaces removal ricardo.olea@sfmta.co
Taxpayers and voters do foot the bill for on-street car parking, whether or not they use it. As it happens, many also prefer not to get injured because a parked car obscured a motorist's line of sight.
All-caps flyers ranting about parking have a storied tradition in San Francisco, but they don't appear to resonate with many people. At an SFMTA Board meeting in May, only three people protested seven daylighting spaces, according to Hoodline.
