December 11, 2002

S.F. vs. SUVs

EVERYONE KNOWS SPORT utility vehicles, known as SUVs, are an environmental disaster. They guzzle gas and foul the air – and they have a special exemption from federal gas-mileage standards. Anyone with any sense also knows that the Bush administration is unlikely to do anything to curb the SUV craze; in fact, the SUV is a virtual icon of Bush's oil-loving, bigger-is-better, get-out-of-America's-way mentality.

But San Francisco doesn't have to be a haven for these monsters. We can look at another area in which SUVs are a growing threat – safety on our streets – and take action to control the problem.

Any regular San Francisco driver or pedestrian has had a variation on the following experience: you're driving down a city street, trying to go through an intersection or make a turn or enter or leave a driveway, and you find yourself saying, I sure hope there isn't another car moving toward me – or worse, a kid running out into the street – because I can't see anything beyond the eight-foot-tall, two-ton vehicle parked in my line of sight.

For those of us with small children on bikes and scooters, the wall of SUVs on our neighborhood streets creates an enormous risk for children and their caregivers trying to cross the street safely as well as drivers trying to enter and exit driveways.

And for those pet guardians who share the sidewalks, the problems are identical to those of small children: gigantic vehicles block sight lines and make walking around the city a dangerous and fear-filled adventure.

I'm nobody to attack yuppie vehicles – I own a late-model Volvo wagon. And I certainly understand the plight of hard-working small-business owners who use trucks and light vans in the course of their daily work and take them home at night – my husband is one of them.

But most of the huge numbers of SUVs parked in San Francisco are not used for business. And they're a threat to our health and safety. We need to send a message to the owners of these gas-guzzling, space-stealing, filthy machines: San Francisco isn't going to make it easy for you to be here.

The simplest easiest way to do that is to make it harder for SUVs to park. That's well within the legal reach of city government. Precedents already exist to exclude vehicles over certain heights from parking in certain areas.

I propose a pilot program in a congested city neighborhood – perhaps my own, the Haight-Ashbury – to restrict parking at corners and adjacent to driveways, allowing only vehicles under five feet tall. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors should ask the Department of Parking and Traffic, which has recently cracked down on double-parking around Union Square, to draft new rules aimed at barring oversized vehicles that don't have commercial plates from parking in places where they might pose a hazard. The board should also ask the DPT to quantify the revenue that may be generated from tickets issued as a result of the new restrictions.

If the pilot program is a success – if accident rates and complaints go down and if revenues go up – then the program should be adopted in all noncommercial parking districts across the city.

San Francisco has an opportunity to show the country how a progressive, creative, fair municipality deals with the safety and health issues that are foisted on us by state and federal laws. This city can't ban SUV ownership or force the behemoths to use less gas. But we can ensure they aren't creating a safety hazard – and in the process, perhaps convince a few potential SUV owners that the hassle of finding a parking space isn't worth it.

Next up: What does "compact only" mean in a garage? Perhaps the Board of Supervisors can ask the DPT to start citing vehicles that are clearly not "compact" in the parking spaces of city-owned garages.