fyi only. Sue ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- John Holtzclaw 415-977-5534 John.Holtzclaw@SierraClub.org Sierra Club Building Healthy Communities Committee (stop Sprawl) Building Healthy Communities -- http://www.SierraClub.org/sprawl Healthy Growth Calculator -- density saves resources & reduces pollution -- http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/density/ also www.sflcv.org/density The City loses a great deal of potential parking revenue because parking meters are removed for construction projects and not re-installed in many cases for years. Part of the problem is that companies are apparently allowed to remove meters when they have construction projects, but there doesn't seem to be any requirement that they ensure they are replaced promptly and/or pay the city to make up for the lost revenue.... A couple of construction projects on Natoma between 1st and 2nd streets were completed years ago but the meters were only recently replaced. Construction permits should require payment to the city to make up for lost revenue from meters until they are replaced and allow the project sponsors to pay to have them replaced promptly. This would give them a strong incentive to minimize the number of meters removed and to replace them quickly. Doing so would help the budget with more revenue. It would also decrease the cost of more vehicles in the city, which increase wear and tear on roads and require emergency services because of the increased collisions. It would also help to reduce congestion, pollution, etc. On Natoma in the one block stretch between 1st and 2nd Streets there were 21 spaces with no meters for years. That’s on just one side of the street; there’s no parking on the other side. They were removed during building construction projects. When I last looked the meters charged $2 an hour. If all those spaces averaged 7 hours a day of payment on weekdays only, they would have raised more than $70,000 a year from just that one side of one block without even counting additional fees for parking violations. Update: there are still 3 meters missing in that block. The rate is now $3/hour, so the loss per meter just counting 7 hours a day on weekdays would be over $5,000. It’s almost certainly higher with weekend parking and fines. Mark C. Brucker 1740 Walnut St. #6 Berkeley, CA 94709 Phone: 510.843.7437 bridger@lupac.net