Walk SF in the Sunday New York Times!

Now, to Find a Parking Spot, Drivers Look on Their Phones

…Drivers cruising for parking spots generate 30 percent of all downtown congestion, city officials estimate.

Now San Francisco professes to have found a solution — a phone app for spot-seekers that displays information about areas with available spaces. …

Eventually officials hope to be able to make regular adjustments to pricing on parking meters — which can be programmed remotely — and at garages so they can spread out demand, raising prices in areas where competition is fiercest and lowering it elsewhere. …

Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy group, said she hoped the new parking app would lead to fewer accidents.

“It’s an innovative idea,” she said. “The safe way for people to use the device is for them to pull over, which they know they should do. The question is whether they will.”