San Francisco Enlists Bus Cameras For Traffic Law Enforcement

Re:N/A by ZackSchil · 2012-02-11 03:45 · Score: 3, Funny

Someone isn't ready for their closeup!

Peterbilt parking by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · 2012-02-11 03:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

Drivers are parking in bus lanes? Man, but these people are desperate. I always thought a solution to the parking nightmare in SF and elsewhere would be to modify those car carrier semi trailers so they could be used as mobile mass parking in some fashion; build upwards, in other words. Might block the view from somebody's Queen Anne though, so scratch that.

Re:Peterbilt parking by drinkypoo · 2012-02-11 04:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

The solution to car problems in SF is to get rid of cars. That moves the problem domain but I can't think of how many times I've thought of how fucking great SF would be without all those damned cars everywhere. Maybe just push them out of the city center, don't allow people to drive in the marina either, et cetera. As it is, it's just another noisy collection of imbeciles that it takes ages to get across at traffic time.

--
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Re:Peterbilt parking by sco08y · 2012-02-11 04:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

The solution to car problems in SF is to get rid of cars.
But that leads to the real problem, which as it turns out, is that people who own cars get to vote, too.
Yeah, even in San Francisco! They actually think they've got "rights" or something like that. Nuts, isn't it?
Re:Peterbilt parking by adenied · 2012-02-11 05:30 · Score: 4, Informative

Not having a car in SF is great if you live near the Market St. tunnel and need to get somewhere on that stretch of the city. Otherwise it's pretty horrible. Sure there's buses and Muni Metro trains that will get you most places, but due to the layout of the city it will generally take you 3x longer to get somewhere via mass transit than driving. As long as this is the case people will keep their cars, even when there's horrible traffic.
That and in many cases Muni buses will be extremely late or bunched up. It's not rare to see Nextbus saying 30+ minutes and this during what are peak travel times. For me it's often faster to walk if the distance is less than 2 miles. This is not an option for a lot of people unfortunately.
Also, what do you do if you live in SF but regularly leave the city? Mass transit is OK for specific things, but Caltrain and BART can only get you so far. I work in Mountain View but will soon need to commute to Campbell a day or two a week. To take mass transit I'd have to take multiple Muni buses or trains or take one and walk a mile, take Caltrain, and then get on VTA somewhere in South Bay. At best my commute will be 2 hours one way and if there's any hiccup and I miss the 5 minute transfer window between Caltrain and VTA it's closer to 2 1/2 to 3 hours. When I can drive down 280 in an hour or so this becomes unacceptable as much as I would prefer to be on a train.
As long as the transit options in the Bay Area are as poor as they are cars will be a necessity for many people. SF would be awesome without them but I just don't see it as feasible. Makes me envy everyone I know who lives in London and NYC.
If we had transit like NYC or London then I'd be all about getting rid of cars.
Re:Peterbilt parking by the+eric+conspiracy · 2012-02-11 05:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

Kick out the cars and I bet the citizens will vote in proper transit funding right quick.
Re:Peterbilt parking by adenied · 2012-02-11 06:16 · Score: 2

With what funding though? They'd be more likely to vote cars back in than raise the necessary tax revenue fund the amount of change that would be necessary in San Francisco alone. That and if it was underground stuff being built it would take forever. They're building a two mile or so extension to the underground trains that will be done in like 2018 or something. And I still have no idea who's actually going to use it.
And look at the BART extension around the bay that was funded. I have no idea when that will be done. 2030?
You could add more surface transportation but you still need access for trucks and other commercial vehicles so it would still be horrible.
The Muni Metro trains that run underground are using control software from the early 1990s that only allows them to run two car trains when the system was designed for three car trains. This is all pathetic compared to NYC's subway. All of the transit agencies are strapped for cash. I don't see banning cars to make people want to fund it more a really viable solution.
Re:Peterbilt parking by dbc · 2012-02-11 07:23 · Score: 2

Although maybe a better idea would be for the cities on the Peninsula to become livable enough so that people don't feel a need to live in SF and commute an hour to two hours a day
Um.... typing this from Sunnyvale. Personally, for me living in SF would be Hell on Earth. Different people have different definitions of 'livable'. Not that Sunnyvale is Nirvana, I'd rather live some place like Mariposa. But at least in Sunnyvale I have easy access to places liked Halted and Weird Stuff Warehouse and life's other fundamental necessities.
Re:Peterbilt parking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 07:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

But that leads to the real problem, which as it turns out, is that people who own cars get to vote, too.
Even further, people with cars often have jobs, significant income, pay taxes and have influence with elected officials.
Re:Peterbilt parking by swalve · 2012-02-11 07:53 · Score: 2

I have to say, for as much I have paid in parking violations, upping enforcement and charging higher rates has made parking better in my city. It used to be a nightmare- you couldn't find street parking anywhere, because people would monopolize spots all day. I'd have to park in a garage, with their ridiculous rate structures ($10 for the first 10 minutes, $26 for 10-60 minutes and $32 for all day) just to run a quick errand. Now I can plunk my $3.50 into a meter and go on with my life.

I remember when I was a kid, there was a parking garage in the city that did sort of what you talk about. You'd pull up, hand the keys to the valet and he'd drive it onto an elevator and store it somewhere. (They also had a terrifying man-lift, where there was a vertical ski-lift kind of thing, with foot and hand pegs on a cable that circulated constantly, and the valets would just jump on to go to the floors they wanted.)

And I think a Dutch company had a computerized version of that system, where you'd pull into a garage, park on a pallet thing, and the computers would store the car-pallet above and below grade. I think you could put in an expected ETA so the computer could store the car efficiently. It's a good solution for areas with high real estate costs, because you aren't wasting half your space on access ramps.
Re:Peterbilt parking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 08:18 · Score: 2, Informative

And so speaks some utterly clueless twenty something hipster. A life style tourist who spends 5 or 10 years here going to college, partying, "working" at some non-profit non-job but who then discovers that when they actually want to grow up and get a real life that all the politically trendy bien pensant policies they have been pushing so hard while living in the City means that there are no real jobs, housing is ludicrously expensive due to no growth policies and the public schools and services are worthless due to massive one party institutional corruption. And so they clear out of SF back to whatever podunk town they came from leaving SF a complete shambles due to their self-indulgent hypocrisy.
There is no car problem in SF. The recent recession has cleared out enough of the waste of space hipster types (just like it did in the early 90's) so that parking is no longer a problem in most parts of SF. In fact I have not seen so much parking in almost 30 years. Of course if you have actually lived in SF for decades and had to make a living here you would know that. Because the real locals actually know where all the good parking spots are no matter where you are in the City. I've never had any problems getting around or finding parking.
The latest insanity in SF is that the 3% of the city population who cycle regularly (70% in SF drive) , who are overwhelming young, white and middle class short term residents, have forced through a huge bike lane program where around 90% of the lanes are in areas where the weekly usage would be in the single / low double digit range. They have removed full road lanes on busy arterial routes for these unused bike lanes causing peak hour back ups on routes where there had never been any previous hold ups. Typical of these arrogant people. Demanding huge public subsides so that they can indulge in their sanctimonious "lifestyle" posturing while other people who are just trying to make a living have even more of their time wasted by these follies.

Re:IMportant announcement: by Goaway · 2012-02-11 03:52 · Score: 3

Seriously, what the hell? What is that flag button?

Did Slashdot actually give up on its stance about censorship, and its moderation system?

Temptation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 03:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

One can certainly understand the need to enforce the policy - if they created dedicated transit lanes to make public transit more efficient and attractive, then the system collapses if those lanes aren't kept clear and the buses have to travel through the same traffic as everybody.

Taking a step back, though, one wonders if dedicated bus lanes are really the best use of the land. An entire extra 10' lane comes to about 1 acre per mile paved. If the buses are five minutes apart, that's a lot of potential street going almost entirely unused. Worse if they're longer apart. (60 -- 90 minutes in my community. We're "rural" though, so the busses are just there to tease us, not to actually provide a viable transportation option)

That mostly empty lane sure would be tempting to a lot of drivers stuck in traffic.

Perhaps a compromise would be to sell a limited number of license to use that lane. Just enough so that it's sparsely occupied, but not so much that it disrupts the flow of buses. Taxis would be obvious potential customers. Pricing could be auction-style and done periodically. And with bus cameras for enforcement, I see no reason why it couldn't work to everyone's benefit.

Re:Temptation by Ihmhi · 2012-02-11 04:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

Some cultures are heading more towards a 1984 style of control and some go for the Brave New World approach. San Francisco seems to enjoy taking the worst elements from both books and just running with it.

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Re:Temptation by Dupple · 2012-02-11 04:07 · Score: 5, Informative

There is a similar system in place in London. Taxi's and motorcycles are able to share bus lanes.
This report from 2007 show's the enforcement cameras are improving things in London
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/static/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/6042.html
After that it get's more complicated because congestion charging at peak times has come into effect for traffic entering the centre of the city

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Re:Temptation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 05:12 · Score: 4, Informative

At least where I live, the public bus only runs between certain operating hours during the day. Normal traffic is allowed to drive in a bus lane outside of those hours, and those hours are posted on signs by that lane every 10ish miles or so.
The lanes are only "exclusive" for 1/3rd of the day, and so not as large of a waste as you imply.
If they wanted the lane to be 100% exclusive, they should have put in train tracks, and instead of normal road safe buses, just use trolleys.
Most people do not argue the right-of-way between cars and trains. Likewise, most people do not attempt to drive up on train tracks. (For the record however, I've seen both happen. The first more so than the second, as people feel being 5 feet closer to the red light will somehow aid their situation)
In fact it would be pretty hilarious if they installed cow-catchers on the front of the buses! Not too helpful against other vehicles, but none the less hilarious to see the attempt!
On my normal work-home commute, there is a particular intersection with traffic light, that has a rail road crossing across it. There is room for exactly three cars between the intersection line, and the rail road line.
If you are the 4th car waiting to go that way, you are supposed to stay behind the tracks.
Apparently tons of people seem to think "Well if a train comes before the light turns green, I'll have to wait even longer... I know, I'll stop on the tracks, that will greatly improve my situation!" and proceed to do just that.
I wish there was a way for these idiots to experience the end results of their logic, without risking other peoples lives in a train derailment.
I have however seen one pickup truck hit by a train stopped over the tracks, totally destroyed, and no derailment happened.
He did fuck up traffic there pretty bad for a few hours.
I have no doubt in my mind that he blamed/blames the train for that too.
Unfortunately he made it out of his vehicle before the train hit it too :/
If there was any sanity left in the system, not only should he have permanently lost his driving license, but should have been opened to lawsuits from all the rest of us around there who he put at risk. Had the train derailed, many more people would have been killed due to his stupidity.
Hell he should have been charged with attempted manslaughter once for each other car within 100 feet of that track, plus anyone on the train.
When I caught the story on the news, all they mentioned was suspended license (implying he can and will get it back eventually) and points on his insurance :/
Re:Temptation by Y-Crate · 2012-02-11 07:04 · Score: 2

Your argument is flawed in that you're applying your own rural area's poor level of service to infrastructure that is not designed for the sticks.
The average car driver commutes alone. The average bus holds 50 to 100 commuters. Rush hour headways in many major American cities are 8 to 15 min, with buses running at full capacity.
This is why they deserve their own lanes, and signal priority. That bus waiting to cross an intersection is likely moving more people than all of the cars waiting at the light combined.
This post in picture form: http://consumerist.com/2010/06/how-much-street-space-car-vs-bus-vs-bicycle.html

Points on your license? by rsilvergun · 2012-02-11 04:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

without that it's just another regressive tax on the working poor. And before a bunch of /.er's chime in with 'How can you be poor & live in San Francisco', don't forget the rich hire maids, gardeners, bus boys and other low income workers that still have to get to work at their wealthy boss' house. I always found it odd there was always a ghetto nearby every rich community until I realized this.

Maybe it's different in San Francisco and they can get around on the bus system quickly and conveniently. Aw, who the heck am I kidding. Why spend good tax money on public transportation when you can just make the poor get up 2 hours early to ride the bus in.

Now, if they're putting points on your license then I like. Here in Arizona we learned from California's mistake and stopped putting red light cameras in rich neighborhoods where the stay-at-home moms could organize a vote to ban them. We keep 'em in the poor neighborhoods where everyone works two jobs. Unlike a cop a camera doesn't know not to ticket a late model BMW or Mercedes.

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Re:Points on your license? by Afforess · 2012-02-11 04:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

Lol what? I visited San Francisco over Christmas and rented a home inside the city center, the bus system was great! The waits at any station was never > 7 minutes, and usually 2-3 minutes. Almost everyone there used the bus systems, and you can also use BART to get outside of the Bay area if you need to. I wish the public transportation in my area (Grand Rapids Michigan) was half as good as San Francisco.

I think commentators should stick to topics they are familiar with instead of making wild, false claims.

--
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Re:Points on your license? by adenied · 2012-02-11 05:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

I live in SF and this is true for a very small portion of the city. If you want to get many places be prepared for a 45 minute bus ride for something that would take half as long or better to drive. I'm sure it's better than Grand Rapids. But Grand Rapids is about the same land area as SF with about 1/8 the population. For things as spread out as that mass transit is difficult.
There are many times where Muni buses only show up every 30 minutes or so and many cases where you need to take two buses or a bus and a Muni Metro train where you're going to wait 15+ minutes at the transfer. I try and use mass transit as much as I can and I'm luck to live near the Castro so I have a lot of options. But in many cases I'll just say screw it and drive because it'll be so much faster.
Re:Points on your license? by sunderland56 · 2012-02-11 06:15 · Score: 2

The bus has a picture of a vehicle violating the law, not of the driver. To put points on a license you would need to prove who was driving.
Re:Points on your license? by AK+Marc · 2012-02-11 06:44 · Score: 2

If you want to get many places be prepared for a 45 minute bus ride for something that would take half as long or better to drive.
I'd kill for that. When I lived in Dallas, I had the choice of a 15 minute drive or a 3+ hour bus trip. I could bike (and probably walk) the 10 miles faster than take a bus, if only most of the roads weren't car-only (the direct route was Interstate). Only twice as long for a bus trip? I was looking at 12 times or worse in Dallas. The one time in high school my car broke down and I took the bus, it took me about 3 hours from home to school to replace the 20 minute drive. Only twice as long? That's great. What, are you expecting buses to be faster than driving?

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Points on your license? by ciurana · 2012-02-11 06:45 · Score: 4, Informative

Howdy!
I split my time between my homes in San Francisco and Moscow, and more than 50% of my time I'm traveling around major cities in Europe and Asia. I seldom use cars in Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo, or pretty much anywhere else where trains, metro, buses, trolley cars, etc. are available. I never owned a car or motorcycle anywhere in Europe or in Tokyo because I just don't need to. If necessary, I rent a car for a day or two, then it's back to the metro.
Public transportation in San Francisco just *sucks* in comparison to other cities, both in the US and worldwide. My beloved city (SF!) doesn't have the flexibility of underground trains like NYC or DC do. MUNI is a joke -- they have lots of buses that have the most inefficient passenger pickup areas in the world -- never have I seen a bus line with bus stops at almost every flipping corner along the route, like in San Francisco. Taxis? More suckiness. Trains? Forget it. San Francisco without your own wheels becomes a pain in the ass very fast.
"The bus system was great!" - try planning your trip by bus, and being on time without having to leave too early, from any point in San Francisco to your destination within the city. You often have to wait for 20-30 minutes without a bus in sight, then four or five come together, in a bunch, because the MUNI drivers decided to take a smoke or lunch break and end it at the same time. This is a far cry from a place like say, Zurich or Oslo, cities of the same approximate area and with a high automobile density, where the bus schedule is met at exact times (e.g."next bus will be a 10:43" and it shows up at exactly that time).
I love San Francisco more than any place in the world. Hearing someone praise its public transportation, though, is like hearing someone praise my mentally handicapped kid brother's arithmetic ability as if he were solving differential equations.
Cheers!

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Re:Points on your license? by AK+Marc · 2012-02-11 06:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

I've found that greens pushing public transport prefer to punish cars with parking fees and changing light timings to cause traffic problems to encourage bus riding, rather than admitting that public transport sucks and working to improve it.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Points on your license? by superdude72 · 2012-02-11 09:22 · Score: 2

I lived in SF for 5 years without a car, commuting to locations in the city, in Berkeley, and in Daly City. I'm not aware of having lacked flexibility to stop somewhere. In a lot of ways I had more flexibility. If I needed to go shopping, for instance, the place where I transferred from BART to Muni was underneath the largest shopping mall west of the Mall of America. There were at least 3 grocery stores on my route home. All I had to do was pick one and get off the bus there. Getting back on the bus, not a problem. Just a 5-10 minute wait usually. A small sacrifice to make compared to all the inconvenience and expense of owning a car.

Re:N/A by epedersen · 2012-02-11 04:05 · Score: 2

Who the f*** is "Cecil B. Demille"? Are we supposed to know that name, or what?

He is a movie director: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_B._DeMille

Re:Damn youngsters. by TaoPhoenix · 2012-02-11 04:07 · Score: 2

It's worse than that Jim, not only do they not know anything, they get more fun out of posting "Who is X" rather than looking it up.

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Re:IMportant announcement: by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 04:08 · Score: 2, Informative

Apparently.

From the FAQ:

How do I report abuse?
Below and to the right of each comment is a small "Anti"[looks like a flag to me -AC] symbol; click on this, and (optionally) explain why you consider the comment abusive. (Slashdot discussions are and should be robust; only cry "Abuse!" for comments that are utterly without redeeming value -- spam, racist ranting, etc. For everything else, use the other moderation options.) Reported comments will be reviewed and moderated by the editors, if appropriate.

Re:Flag Button by TaoPhoenix · 2012-02-11 04:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Wow, that's right.

We've had 10 years of crappy First Posts but it was in the name of freedom of speech, and NOW we get a "Flag" button? And that actually leads to potentially having the comment *totally disappear*?

When did THAT arrive?

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"feel a bit like Cecil B. Demille.' by swschrad · 2012-02-11 04:25 · Score: 2

said the Ram pickup, rustily, "I'm ready for my close-up."

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Re:IMportant announcement: by eyenot · 2012-02-11 04:25 · Score: 2

*shrug* In the approximations of many users, slashdot isn't even any longer "news for nerds" nor "stuff that matters". Would it be surprising if they are now so desperate for quality content that they've resorted to attempting to get rid of the "bad" in the hopes that what remains looks like the "good"?

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Tape? by mcgrew · 2012-02-11 04:29 · Score: 5, Funny

15 months from now, all of Muni's 819 buses will be equipped with the cameras: drivers caught on tape violating the bus lanes will be subject to fines of up to $115.

Tape? How quaint.

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Or let the bus drivers handle it. by ArcCoyote · 2012-02-11 04:46 · Score: 3, Informative

I might be mistaken, but I do believe in Baltimore, bus drivers have the authority to issue citations. I once parked in a bus stop and didn't realize it, I'm pretty sure the ticket was written by the driver.

Re:Or let the bus drivers handle it. by Paintballparrot · 2012-02-11 16:11 · Score: 2

The bus drivers do not but the Maryland Transit Authority has its own police department and most of those cops ride around on buses and trains all day to curb the massive problem Baltimore has with violence on public transit. You most likely had your ticket written by one of them.

Re:dangerous idea by ArcCoyote · 2012-02-11 04:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Revenge? For what, a parking ticket?

If nothing else, I'm more OK with these cameras because there is a human behind them. This isn't an automated system, just an easier way for the bus driver to report offenders (much like that new flag button...)

The driver could always snap a picture with his phone if the bus didn't have a camera.

On another note... by WSOGMM · 2012-02-11 05:10 · Score: 2

Improving San Francisco's MUNI system is pretty important to me. It's been considerably annoying to see cars parked in the bus lane, and it's almost annoying as seeing cars park in the middle of the right lane with their emergency lights on because there's no parking, which more buses would help with! ... As a side note, it's almost impossible to live in San Francisco for an extended period of time with a vehicle and not get a parking ticket. They're ruthless!!

It's funny though, I've lived in Germany for the last half year, and I've found that their transportation system is ten times better than San Francisco's. Don't get me wrong, BART is amazing, but I live in a small town at the moment and its transportation system runs more often than San Francisco's. Paris and Berlin have both train systems that run late, and night trains, while San Francisco's train system stops around 11 pm (then buses run sparsely after that).

Re:Flag Button by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 05:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Seems like it changed around Feb. 9th. Here's Google's cache of the old moderation page of the FAQ:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KMxelxNspVkJ:http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml+slashdot+institutes+new+flag+abuse+comment+system&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Mxw&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&gbv=1&prmd=imvns&strip=1

Here's Slashdot's previous policy on comments and moderation:

Will you delete my comment?
No. We believe that discussions in Slashdot are like discussions in real life- you can't change what you say, you only can attempt to clarify by saying more. In other words, you can't delete a comment that you've posted, you only can post a reply to yourself and attempt to clarify what you've said.
In short, you should think twice before you click that 'Submit' button because once you click it, we aren't going to let you Undo it.
Why did my comment get deleted?
The only time we ever delete comments is if the comment contains malformed HTML that is somehow causing Slashdot to fail to display properly. Comments are not deleted on the basis of content. At this point, however, it shouldn't be a big worry. The comment engine is reasonably bulletproof, and it's pretty tough to post a comment that breaks Netscape.
If you posted a comment and you don't see it now, it may have been moderated down below your threshold (see below). If you set your threshold to -1, you should be able to see it again.

This is a rather huge change in comment policy that wasn't preceded by any announcement on the site that I can find (honestly, I didn't look very hard, though). Were subscribed Slashdot users notified by this change?

Local county here uses them on school buses by Shivetya · 2012-02-11 05:23 · Score: 2

http://www.georgiainjurylawblog.com/archives/bus-accidents-cobb-county-uses-school-bus-cameras-to-catch-errant-drivers-prevent-accidents.html

Cobb County has the second largest fleet of school buses in Georgia. The mere thought that nearly a thousand people don't obey the lights on a school bus each day is hard to believe. Hopefully they will release statistics to show how many people they are photographing.

Second story, reported two violations per day under manual system
http://mdjonline.com/pages/full_story/push?article-School+officials+still+having+issues+with+bus+stop+cameras%20&id=15410211

Cobb County bus stats
Transportation Department
at a glance...

913 Bus Drivers
148 Bus Monitors
845 Conventional Buses
275 Special Needs Buses
813 Routes per day
41,978 Bus Stops per day
72,181 Miles Traveled per day
75,642 Students Transported each day

so you figure, if people won't respect school buses I betcha that San Fran certainly has problems with parking or violating bus lanes

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Re:IMportant announcement: by Soulskill · 2012-02-11 06:28 · Score: 5, Informative

There's no automation. Flagged comments will be sent to the editors to review. Our two options once we see them will be to ignore the report or to downmod the comment.

The comments will still be readable for anyone who wants to browse at -1. The purpose is simply to more quickly find and downmod spam and things like the racist copypastas.

If you're curious, there were about 60 reported comments when I pulled up the page this afternoon (including the one I'm responding to). I've gone through half so far, and haven't downmodding any yet today.

Re:IMportant announcement: by Goaway · 2012-02-11 06:39 · Score: 2

Look, you really want to run these things by the community before implementing them. Just quietly sneaking that in there does not inspire much confidence. Slashdot has a pretty strong tradition against that sort of thing, and if you're going to change things, really, explain it clearly first.

Re:IMportant announcement: by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-02-11 08:32 · Score: 2

While the difference between email and a simple mouse click may just be a difference of degree and not kind, it is such a large difference in degree as to make the question of kind moot.

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Good idea by Animats · 2012-02-11 08:48 · Score: 2

This seems like a good idea. I live near SF, and see bus lanes blocked occasionally, usually by double-parked delivery trucks.

SF Muni operates more than typical buses. They have long, articulated buses. They have trolley buses powered from overhead lines. They have street cars running on rails. None of those are very maneuverable. So blocked transit lanes are a big deal, more so than in most cities.

Re:Good idea by TubeSteak · 2012-02-11 17:37 · Score: 2

This seems like a good idea. I live near SF, and see bus lanes blocked occasionally, usually by double-parked delivery trucks.
Delivery services consider those tickets just a cost of doing business.
Here's a nice article from 2007 about SF, delivery trucks, and parking tickets
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/24/MNGMPOAK521.DTL

"This is part of the price of doing business," said Jim McCluskey, a spokesman for FedEx, which paid San Francisco $434,046 for 7,711 tickets [in 2006]. "We encourage our operators to park legally, but we also need to meet the needs of our customers who want reliable, on-time service."
Because of the sheer number of tickets, most big cities have special programs for the largest corporate offenders.
This keeps the court system from getting clogged up and streamlines collections.

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o0t!

Bus lanes confusing by JoeCommodore · 2012-02-11 09:00 · Score: 3, Informative

last time the wife and I visited San Francisco we unknowingly got caught in a bus lane and had to go a block or so to get out. Hope there is some leeway for us idiot drivers who don't understand San Francisco bus lanes.

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San Francisco Enlists Bus Cameras For Traffic Law Enforcement

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