San Francisco kills plan to charge $6 entrance fee from south

[Newsjock]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Bowing to intense pressure from the Peninsula, San Francisco supervisors today killed an idea to charge commuters up to $6 daily to enter and exit the city from the south.

The supervisors, acting as the city's transportation authority, voted 9-2 to scrap the proposal and instead will study whether to charge a toll only to downtown commuters.

Under the plan struck down today, commuters would have paid up to $1,500 per year to cross the San Francisco-San Mateo County border via freeways and major streets during morning and evening rush hour. Officials in San Francisco would have collected up to $80 million annually in revenue to fund local transportation projects.

Instead, the Board of Supervisors voted to approve an in-depth study of a proposal that would charge commuters $3 each way to enter or exit the city's downtown, bordered by Laguna and 18th streets, during peak traffic times. They also approved study of an idea to toll commuters $6 per day to leave the downtown in the evening.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_16857762

[musette_sf]

1. GOOD.

That counter-proposal from San Mateo County to charge $12 to enter the Peninsula seems to have worked.

And I personally think that hitting people, who just got socked with the bridge toll to enter SF, with an EXTRA toll is ridiculous.

[savalez]

4. Hi musette_sf, are you from SF?

If so, what are people there saying about this. I'm just hearing about this and at first read it sounds terrible. But I don't know the situation. Do folks like this idea? Is there support? Curious. Thanks.

[savalez]

2. I'm stunned it was even voted on.

Is this for real?

[dipsydoodle]

3. For comparison this is London

general : http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/congestioncharging/

cost : http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/congestioncharging/17094.aspx#charge

The zone is fully covered by cameras at all perimeter access points / roads. The cameras read car number plates.

[mulsh]

5. Marin and East bay still have to pay an entrance fee.

n/t

[CreekDog]

6. those tolls operate bridges otherwise they'd need a ferry

but with respect to this problem, here's what i'd be willing to do:

merge all the transit agencies into one regional transit district...actually better yet, New York style, merge all transportation agencies into one, mass transit and roads become part of the same agency, then charge everybody equally for transportation improvements. where roads are the best fix, all within the region would pay to support them and where mass transit is the best fix, all within the region would pay to support that. for the areas where both play an equal role, the taxes those areas pay would fund both.

i like the concept of a congestion management fee or tax (would be better), but charging people to come into one county to fund transit within that county only seems counterproductive. after all, if you want people from San Mateo County to leave their cars in that county, you should try to make changes within their home counties to help make that possible (and no, northern San Mateo County is not an exurb, but a suburban but highly dense area that is well-suited for more mass transit and mass transit that is integrated with the city of San Francisco (of which these communities are nearly completely tied to --except in terms of their rather insular governments).

to me, the whole concept of the 9 county Bay Area running their own transit and transportation projects separately is stupid. i wish it would change. there's this hubris among them that says, "we run our system better, so we don't want to share it's operation with the neighboring county" (BART and Caltrain are actually NOT exceptions to this by the way --and isn't that odd?). furthermore, there's also this idea that if one county cedes some revenue to an adjacent county's transit system, that it's harming their own citizens. even though an improved MUNI in San Francisco really does help those who could depend on it to travel in SF. also a unified system could focus on getting people from, say, San Bruno to multiple parts of SF rather than just one major area (and help SF'ers do the reverse). BART is about the only system that spans multiple counties very extensively, but even then, you're limited to where it does go unless you have a car, but using your car at one end of that system is self-defeating and if you need a car on the other end, you can't use the system anyway.

so many problems, so little imagination among electeds to effectively address them.