Here’s Another Way California Just Found to Make Life Hell

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always believed that the government’s job was to provide basic services like roads and infrastructure and otherwise stay out of the way so people could make their lives better. At the very least, I figured it was the government’s job to not make things worse.

That’s exactly why I left San Francisco 30 years ago when, as I liked to joke, the state had made it impossible even to take a leak without first filing a CalEPA environmental impact statement. In triplicate, of course. And with a hefty filing fee.

On January 1, life in San Francisco will get that much worse as the city prepares to lose as many as 14,000 parking spaces. When I moved to the city in 1992, the parking situation was so bad that I looked into monthly parking at a garage “just” seven blocks from my apartment but blanched at the $110 fee for a reserved space. I just checked, and that same garage now runs $415 — or $565 if you need it reserved.