guest post by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)
I recently met a city employee who was painting San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic logos and “Tow Away” markings on curbs around the Mission. These are the very stencils used to create the curb markings that generate so much pain and anxiety for San Francisco motorists. It also occurred to me that from a revenue perspective, the return-on-investment from a DPT stencil must be huge, given how many expensive parking tickets each one generates. Just the sight of them made my blood pressure rise.
photos by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
It's a hundred million dollar/year racket, for sure. Parking ticket revenue pays for 25% of the budget of San Francisco's entire police force.
As a cyclist and CarShare type, I don't have that same negative association. I've taken to thanking DPT people when they're ticketing obnoxious double parkers and hydrant blockers. They're always, always surprised. And generally a little nervous.
Yikes. Those photos actually made me shudder.
The first year I lived in the city I got 13 tickets. Ugh. Painful. I fought all of them and beat eight. Not bad, right? In most cases, all it took was a letter.
I got rid of my car the next year and got City Carshare and haven't had a ticket ever since. :-)
If you get a moving violation, my friend Patrick made this site to help you fight it. There's nothing on there for parking tickets but I used the same philosophy: vigorously contest every ticket you get, whether you are innocent, guilty or not sure.
If DPT limited themselves to ticketing double parkers that would be fantastic. But you've got to wonder where their priorities lie in a world in which I've gotten more than one ticket for blocking my own driveway. That's not heroic parking justice defending the oppressed masses from our family VW, that's just the city trying to generate revenue.
The DPT logo looks like some weird Blade Runner logo.
The message is “don't drive in San Francisco” unless you're personally willing to balance the city budget. I use Zipcar (infrequently) now…
New Yorkers have the same reaction.
One enterprising young woman made a T-shirt of it:
From http://parableink.com/pticketbigidea.html…
The mere sight of one of the unwelcome orange tickets is enough to make even the most seasoned New York driver cringe, and that’s part of the T-shirt’s appeal, Velasquez explained. “It’s such an anxiety-provoking image – it really makes a statement,” she said. “When people walk past my table, they never fail to react,” she said. “Everybody smiles.”
Velasquez estimates she has sold at least 5,000 shirts since April, averaging 150 per week. During Christmas season, she took home almost $6,000 in a single weekend.
Velasquez’s design is not only popular on the street, it’s gaining some mainstream attention too. The tees were in the New York Press’ 2003 Christmas guide, and members of the band OutKast bought four. “A customer told me they spotted someone at Yoko Ono’s art opening,” Velasquez said.
You can buy the T-shirt here: http://www.t-shirtgeneration.com/PARKING_VIOLAT...
=v= Here’s a novel idea: If you’re so shudderingly fearful of tickets, stop parking on my sidewalks, in my crosswalks, in my bike lanes, and blocking my public transit.
The motorist doth protesteth too much. The number of parking tickets issued falls far short of number of illegally-parked vehicles impeding the 30% of us in San Francisco who choose not to inflict cars on the public sphere.
Boy, now that we’ve got such awesome stills of the stencils, all Cacophony needs is a few pieces of plywood and a jig saw. Thanks, Scott!
I have had my very narrow driveway blocked by SF drivers so many times I ended up PAYING the city $78 to stencil either side. If you don’t like tickets, be considerate of your fellow San Franciscans. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen in THIS city!)