By Noah Sanders
On a Sunday morning, the stretch of Dolores that runs from Market to 24th Street can be an obstacle course of double-parked cars. For years, churches in the neighborhood have blocked off single traffic lanes to help expedite parking for their congregants. Since more than a dozen churches are located near Dolores Street, the medians become magnets for parking-hungry brethren, and problems with traffic and bike safety quickly arise.
According to CBS and Uptown Almanac, these churches blatantly flout longstanding parking regulations without punishment. And it’s not just churchgoers getting in on the act. With Dolores Park being the city’s go-to for drunken weekend revelry, churchgoers must now contend with Dolo’s boozed-up, tank-top-wearing crowd, who’ve suddenly wised up that parking enforcement apparently tuns a blind eye to double-parking on Dolores. But here’s the thing: regardless of who’s parking in them, these makeshift spots aren’t legal, and the city doesn’t seem to care.
Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, sees double-parking as more than just an annoyance; she says it’s an “entrenched habit.” People have been freely double-parking in the area for so long that it feels as if it’s legal, she told The Bold Italic. When the neighborhood was working to widen sidewalks an additional 10 feet to improve walkability for pedestrians, Aiello says the hood’s biggest concern was whether residents would still be able to easily double-park.
“People really thought that all hell was going to break loose,” Aiello said, with some citizens arguing that illegal double-parking was how they survived in a city with an endemic parking shortage. Aiello thinks the bad behavior stems from a lack of enforcement. In the past, when she reached out to city officials to see why double-parkers aren’t getting ticketed, she received the same rote response: “Not enough officers.”
“It’s the same old excuse, every time,” Aiello said. “If there was better enforcement of these laws, maybe so many people wouldn’t be getting killed in the crosswalks.” When CBS asked the SFMTA about the lack of parking enforcement in the area, the agency responded, “That’s something that’s been going on for generations in San Francisco.”
Regardless of whether or not illegally double-parking is a “tradition,” the problem has reached epic proportions along Dolores in particular. If the city doesn’t start enforcing its own parking laws — regardless of whether the violator is a churchgoer or a park partier — San Francisco’s traffic woes are going to get a lot worse.
[h/t CBS; photo courtesy of Eric Fischer/Flickr]
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