June 2, 2026 Update
The SFMTA Board approved the expansion of Pay or Permit Parking (PPP) in Hayes Valley today.
Read our full letter to SFMTA here.
Read our post hearing followup here.
May 28, 2026
SFMTA is quietly fast-tracking a major expansion of the Pay or Permit Parking (PPP) program in Hayes Valley — doubling the number of blocks covered from 58 to 126. The proposal heads to the SFMTA Board on June 2, and most residents still have no idea this is happening.
Last year we published a detailed breakdown after directly engaging SFMTA:
➡️ What We Learned From Engaging SFMTA on Pay or Permit Parking
Bottom line:
The main driver isn’t proven success — it’s grant money. Despite underwhelming results from the pilot, available funding is accelerating this expansion.
Major issues remain unresolved:
- Updated compliance analysis is still incomplete
- No clear success benchmarks have been defined
- Combined impacts with Hayes Street weekend closures were never fully evaluated
- Outreach was limited relative to the scale of the proposal
- Long-term neighborhood impacts remain unclear
Important Context:
SFMTA originally explored this program in the Marina, Cow Hollow, and Lower Haight as well. After community pushback, those neighborhoods were dropped — leaving Hayes Valley as the sole target. We should not be the default guinea pig for a program others successfully rejected.
If this expansion is approved, residents and businesses will face real daily inconvenience: more time circling for parking, higher costs for visitors, delivery drivers, and tradespeople, and added friction in a neighborhood that has already absorbed years of parking experiments and street changes.
At a time when SFMTA faces serious budget deficits and potential Muni service cuts, prioritizing the doubling of an unproven program simply because the $1.5M grant is available raises serious questions about priorities and fiscal management.
We deserve proven results and real transparency before this program is doubled.
Public comments to the SFMTA Board are due Monday at noon.
• SFMTA Project Page
• SFMTA Board Hearing Info
the email/comment submission period has ended