Or if you want to look at it another way: San Francisco won a Sustainable Transport Award for the SFPark program's dynamic meter pricing and for replacing a citywide swath of parallel parking spaces with parklets. You know, depending on which side of the green fence you're on. The award is given by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (which is apparently an organization that conveniently fights emissions, poverty, and pollution all at once), and it recognizes San Francisco as an innovator of sorts in the area of sustainable transport. Also: we got bonus points for "embracing social media".
Per the institute:
San Francisco is using parking reform to great effect. The new ‘SFpark’ variable-rate, demand-responsive parking management system, provides real-time parking availability information online, via text and smartphone apps. The city’s ‘Pavement to Parks’ program reclaims parking spaces for public space and has created 20 new and dynamic parklets with more on the way. The city started to upgrade and expand its bike network, setting an ambitious target of 20 percent of all trips made by bicycle by 2020.
We completely agree with the delightful trend towards parklets here. It is definitely in San Francisco's best interest to replace cars on the roads with places were regular people can legally drink outside without looking like transients. Per the SFPark thing: we can't be sure if anyone from the ITDP actually tried to use SFPark — most regular people can't seem to figure that thing out. But then maybe that's the point — to keep drivers on their toes.
In other news, Medellin, Colombia was also honored for that city's use of suspended cable cars servicing the city's hillside slums. So now you know San Francisco has something in common with Medellin other than a seedy history with Bolivian marching powder.
