"We really led the way for how a modern dynamic city can grow in a way that is sustainable. And that decision has served us well for 30 years," Metcalf said.
Tom Radulovich, a longtime BART board member who serves as director of the nonprofit group Livable City, said San Franciscans now must choose whether they want to plan for growth like Copenhagen, Denmark, Paris, and Portland, Ore., or go with auto-dependent models, like Houston, Atlanta, and San Jose.
"Do we want transit or traffic? That's really the choice. We have made progress as a city over the last 30 years, particularly with regard to how downtown develops," Radulovich said. "Can downtown and the neighborhoods coexist? Yes, but we need to grow jobs in ways that don't increase traffic."
City officials acknowledge that some new parking may be needed.
"There may be places where it's OK to add parking in San Francisco, but we have to be smart about it. We have to make sure it's in places where it doesn't create a breakdown in the system. We have to make sure it's priced correctly, and we have to make sure it doesn't destroy Muni's ability to operate," Metcalf said. "The problem with Prop. H is it essentially decontrols parking everywhere. It prevents a smart approach to parking."
Yet the difficulty right now is in conveying such complexities against the "bureaucracy bad" argument against Prop. A and the "parking good" argument for Prop. H.
"We are trying to make complex arguments, and our opponents are making simple arguments, which makes it hard for us to win in a sound-bite culture," Radulovich said.
"Prop. H preys on people's experience of trying to find a parking space," Metcalf said. "The problem is cities are complex, and this measure completely misunderstands what it takes to be a successful city."
When MTA director Nathaniel Ford arrived in San Francisco from Atlanta two years ago, he said, "it was clear as soon as I walked in the door that there was an underinvestment in the public transit system."
Prop. A would help that by directing more city funds to the MTA, starting with about $26 million per year. "I don't want to say the situation is dire, but it's certainly not going to get better without some infusion of cash to get us over the hump," Ford told the Guardian recently from his office above the intersection of Market and Van Ness.
The proposed extra money would barely get this long-underfunded agency up to modern standards, such as the use of a computer routing system. "We actually have circuit boards with a guy in a room with a soldering iron keeping it all together," Ford said with an incredulous smile.
The other thing that struck Ford when he arrived was the cumbersomeness of the MTA's bureaucracy, from stifling union work rules to Byzantine processes for seemingly simple actions like accepting a grant, which requires action by the Board of Supervisors.
"Coming from an independent authority, I realized ...
Vote Yes on A because it is *real* Muni reform. It's comprehensive: it provides funding, labor reform, streamlines the city's transportation bureaucracy, and mandates the first ever practical department-level climate action plan. If you believe in transit, and want to avoid service cuts and fare increases in next year's budget, vote YES on Proposition A.
Now for the first real policy substance in these comments. Yes, Prop A shifts a lot of power and money around, and it's almost all good.
The money: all future revenue from parking garage and meter fees and fines will go to the MTA instead of the General Fund. This is $26 million now, and stands to be much more when the MTA figures out how to manage its garages better. It tightens up the allowable uses of those revenues, in fact, by specifying they must be used "to support the MTA's transit-related functions." Writing "this check" to the MTA is less of a blank check than allowing the money to stay in the general fund. You know that; you're just borrowing the whole "black check" rhetoric from Don Fisher's anti-Prop A mailer because it sounds good.
Labor: eliminating the cap on salaries provides management the chance to give the MTA's transit workforce the highest base wages in the country, in exchange for "giving back" some of the work rule bonus payments and impediments to discipline. (Muni workers get the highest portion of their pay in bonuses compared to other major transit agencies.) No work rule changes, no raise.
The power: Prop A puts the responsibility for transit and traffic fully into the MTA's hands where it belongs. Yes, the MTA isn't the nation's leader in transit-first planning and implementation, but neither is the Board of Supervisors or the Mayor. In one case I care about, bike lanes, the Board has been demonstrably better than the MTA so Prop A preserves the ability of the Board to institute bike lanes without MTA approval. Not speaking for SPUR, I would like to a different governance structure on the MTA Board, including some elections. I would also like to see a different governing structure at City Hall but that doesn't make me vote against improvements to the structure that fall short of my ideal (and that don't contradict it)!
Prop A is comprehensive, and therefore more complicated than a typical measure. Peskin deserves credit for being so thorough. Unfortunately that very thoroughness makes it easy for opponents to find something that some voter somewhere won't like, and pick at it a million times.
I hope voters appreciate comprehensive Muni reform and vote YES on A.
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