Bend a little for those tourists on Lombard
Ah, Lombard Street. San Francisco’s most famous street, known around the world for its red brick road, Victorian mansions, dramatic switchback curves, blooming flower beds and ... obnoxious tourists.
For decades, the stretch of Lombard between Jones and Hyde streets has been one of San Francisco’s top tourist destinations. Every guidebook has a section devoted to the so-called “Crookedest Street in the World”; every tourist map has a pop-out of those red-brick turns. The fact that Lombard Street is neither the crookedest street in the world or even the crookedest street in San Francisco (that distinction belongs to Vermont Street between 20th and 22nd, on Potrero Hill) hasn’t stopped the tourist crush. Every year, more than 2 million people show up for a picturesque descent. And the locals have finally had it. Supervisor Mark Farrell, whose district includes that section of Lombard, is fighting an uphill battle to impose a reservation system — and a toll — on the street.
Farrell, who proposed the idea after being besieged with neighborhood complaints for years, wants to use a FasTrak reader system, like the ones on the Bay Bridge, for reservations and fees. If approved, this would be the first toll on a public street in California.
Other San Francisco officials haven’t been convinced by the idea, to put it mildly. At a transportation meeting at the board this week, other supervisors questioned the idea’s effectiveness. Then the full board voted for the kiss of bureaucratic death — more study.
When I told Farrell the next day that I was interested in writing about the idea, he sounded a little sensitive.
“I’d personally like to invite you to join me one weekend to witness the traffic, pedestrian, public safety, environmental, quality of life and other issues that exist in the area,” he told me.
Invitation accepted, Supervisor. But here’s the thing — I get why the residents are so annoyed.
They’re living in a tourist trap. That would make anybody miserable.
Imagine. You’re living on Lombard Street, struggling through the typical challenges of everyday life on Russian Hill — there’s no parking and no decent Mexican food, and your wealthier neighbor keeps hiring away your nannies.
Meanwhile, every day you wake up to the shrieks and giggles of tourists pounding the sidewalk outside of your home.
They’re brandishing selfie sticks across the length of your doorway. They’ve been drinking Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, so they’re trying to relieve themselves in your flowerbeds. A tour guide with a bullhorn is hollering at them in five different languages while you’re on the phone with your aged parents.
You’re going through all of life’s emotions every day, but you have a constant chorus just beyond your window. It’s not a wise chorus, either, but one of happy idiots in cargo shorts.
I get it. Tourists are awful. They clog the streets and the restaurants. They walk slowly on the sidewalk and drift between lanes of traffic, looking for the turnoff to the Golden Gate Bridge. They don’t respect all of the little things that make this city work, because they don’t live here.
It can be difficult to feel hospitable toward them, and I’m often guilty of feeling frustrated toward them. But I’m a tourist sometimes, too. As are most of my fellow residents.
So, putting aside the very serious matter of whether it’s even legal for San Francisco to charge tourists to use a public road, here’s a simple question: How would we feel if other cities did this to us?
We wouldn’t feel appreciated, now would we?
I thought not. Since San Franciscans aren’t known for their hospitality anyway, and we depend on tourism to prop up our local economy, maybe the residents of Lombard Street should lobby for a solution that’s a little softer than throwing up a visitor gate.
The draft report from the County Transportation Authority to manage access to the 1000 block of Lombard Street includes less drastic ideas, like improving enforcement of existing parking and traffic regulations, enhancing signage, and working with the tourism industry to manage the number of visitors. Those are simple, common-sense solutions that will go a long way toward mitigating many problems.
But they’re not flashy, and they lack the sense of grievance that powers the idea of a toll. My hunch is that the residents like the idea of punishing these annoying visitors, just a little bit.
But grievance isn’t just a bad way to conduct public policy, it’s an ineffective one. San Franciscans may despise our constant crush of tourists, but we sure would miss them if they left.