SAN FRANCISCO — You've just driven from Oakland to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge and shelled out $4 for the toll. You'll be dinged upward of $30 to park for the day in the city.
And if city officials have their way, you could be charged $3 to drive into downtown San Francisco during peak commute hours and another $3 to leave.
America's second most congested city could become the first to institute so-called congestion pricing to try to reduce downtown traffic, improve the environment and raise money for further transit fixes. A similar effort failed earlier this year in New York City.
Such a plan might sound like a slam-dunk here, in the first American metropolis to ban plastic shopping bags -- where officials considered tapping pet feces for fuel instead of sending it to the landfill, the mayor banned the use of city funds to buy bottled water (too much garbage), and the bicycle lobby is a force to be reckoned with.
But reaction to the plan's recent rollout has ranged from lukewarm to downright hostile.
Even Jose Luis Moscovich, executive director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, acknowledged at a recent City Hall forum that "we're all nervous about it."
Moscovich is the man who said that "tens of thousands of additional car trips in San Francisco" share a "common thread" with "terrorism, climate change, the mortgage crisis, Hurricane Katrina."
That "common thread," he wrote in a recent San Francisco Chronicle essay, was that "we weren't ready when they hit." To prepare, "we must consider charging motorists who choose to drive in our city's most congested areas during peak periods."
The online reaction was fast and furious.
"Why should I have to pay to drive on public streets?" asked one reader. "Driving has gone the way of smoking," wrote another, adding that "it is easy and right to pick on drivers."
Congestion pricing, said a third, "would be a regressive tax on those who don't have good public transit options . . ."
Earlier this month, transportation authority staff members held a series of public hearings to explain what such a plan might accomplish. They also tried to poll audience members about their views on congestion pricing.
It wasn't pretty.
The first question at the Dec. 2 gathering was innocuous: "If congestion pricing were implemented, how might you change your typical peak period trip?"
The options offered to the crowd were:
