»In which MUNI is second-class

The price of doing business in San Francisco, according to a FedEx spokesperson, includes citations for double-parking, for obstructing bus traffic, and for generally being above-the-law members of the community. When I read a MUNI driver's comments on what causes MUNI to miss its on-time targets, the number two complaint was "When delivery truck, UPS delivery trucks, cab drivers double- park on the street, the buses have to either wait for them or try to go around them".

Businesses that frequently collect tickets pay them off in bulk through the city, through the same Municipal Transportation Agency which oversees MUNI. For a fistful of pennies ($1.5 million annually, of the $85 million collected through parking citations overall), the city mortgages its bus service, increases congestion, and fails to encourage delivery services to find more efficient ways to run their businesses. Do other congested cities have similar programs allowing private delivery services to take precedence over public transport? This is backwards: Delivery services should be heavily fined until they find less-intrusive means of transport. The city should encourage the use of smaller trucks for downtown and the use of bicycles for the last mile.