If you moved in front of, say, Lombard Street or the Powerhouse, you'd except some sort of tourist-related melee, yes? Well, don't tell that to the neighbors in Alamo Square who have had it up to here with tour buses infiltrating the tony neighborhood.
Right now, San Francisco has banned said buses from hauling lazy tourists to see the famed Victorian homes on Steiner Street. But some of those buses, it seems, are still sneaking their way into the neighborhood. Bastards. And now residents, fed up with the verboten vehicles, are going so far as to egg and kick the buses. The Chronicle has more:
"There's still drivers coming through the neighborhood, and they're still as aggressive as ever," said Kelly Edwards, who lives in the big Westerfeld House at the corner of Fulton and Scott streets. "They still think it's a thoroughfare. It makes me mad as hell."Edwards fought for the ban and even posted a sign in his home's window reading, "Get off your big, fat tour bus and experience San Francisco." He said the number of buses shuttling through has since dropped but that certain drivers ignore the law.
"I've gotten into the street to try to get them the other way, and they make kissing faces at me," Edwards said.
His girlfriend, Heidi Knodle, will sometimes join him in obstructing the buses.
"We try to block them, but they knock us out of the way," she said. "I egged one bus. We're marking them. I was kicking a bus the other day, and neighbors were cheering along."
Pst, vomit works better, Kelly!
But the issue here, at least ostensibly, is pedestrian safety and traffic congestion. "The residential streets in San Francisco are too small to accommodate large tour buses," Gus Hernandez, an irate Alamo Square resident, explains.
Hopefully, this can get resolved before tourist season hits. Alamo Square has enough problems with bus congestion, shuttling tech sect members to and from the Peninsula.