Working in the city’s eternally chaotic trauma ward is hard.
But landing a coveted employee parking pass at Zuckerberg San Francisco General? Even harder.
According to doctors, medical technicians, fellows, and residents interviewed by The Standard, it takes about five years to get a monthly permit for one of approximately 850 spots in the SF General parking garage. The hospital said the waitlist, introduced several years ago in response to rising parking demand from patients and staff, has around 600 people.
Employees who live outside the city and away from BART stations said none of their alternatives — gambling on sparse neighborhood parking, parking in offsite lots in Mission Bay and catching a shuttle, or shelling out $580 a month for daily parking in the garage — are ideal.
“It breaks the bank. It really hurts,” said J., a clinical lab scientist who asked to be identified by only her first initial. “I work at 5 a.m., so transit doesn’t really work for me.”
J., 27, says she spent five years on the waitlist and now pays $170 for a monthly parking permit, as opposed to $29 for day passes. She added that she could park in the neighborhood but doesn’t like walking through Potrero Hill alone in the dark.
Chris, a 41-year-old radiology fellow who lives in Pacifica, called the cost of a daily pass “insane,” adding that he and other fellows and residents have advocated for better options — to no avail.
“The residents’ union has pushed hard for this, but [parking] is called ‘the third rail of negotiations,’” he said, adding that residents do not receive a parking subsidy.
Representatives of the SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents declined to comment, explaining that a new round of bargaining will begin soon. They noted that the union bargains with UCSF, which runs resident programs at numerous local hospitals, not with SF General itself.
Some workers said members of different unions pay different prices for monthly passes, ranging from $120 to $170. A hospital spokesperson said the rates are the same for all staff members, but some unions have negotiated parking stipends.
Psychiatric social worker Jennifer Wahr was one of several hospital workers who was too daunted by the five-year wait to apply for a monthly pass.
“I’m not even on the list,” said Wahr, who alternately uses public transit or eats the daily rate in the garage. “I spent $1,000 in a two-month period.”
Wahr’s union, University Professional and Technical Employees, asked the University of California to give all members a $100 monthly parking subsidy, but the university has not responded to the request, according to UPTE’s website. A UC spokesperson said negotiations are ongoing.
“I’m paying out-of-pocket, post-tax dollars to come to work at the general hospital,” Wahr said. “It adds to a slow avalanche of reasons why attrition has been high.”
While the hospital attributed the need for a waitlist to staff expansion and a rise in patient visits, its advent also coincided with a city-wide shift from transit to personal driving during the pandemic. The spokesperson said management does what it can to “ensure that patients, staff, and visitors can get to the campus to work and receive care,” adding that garage rates are set by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The spokesperson said the hospital encourages people to use public transportation “when feasible.”
That would be well and good, but dermatology resident Garrett Patrick has to drop off his child at daycare before he commutes from Daly City, so he has no choice but to drive.
“The story we always get is that the state of California wants to encourage alternative transit,” Patrick said. “We’ve always been asking for parking.”
According to an SFMTA spokesperson, the SF General garage generated $6 million in revenue in fiscal 2023-24. Half the revenue covers garage expenses; the rest goes toward the Muni budget.
The agency outsources management to a contractor, LAZ Parking, which operates garages across the country and describes itself as one of the biggest parking companies in the world. SFMTA paid LAZ Parking $1.73 million in fiscal 2023-24 to operate the hospital’s garage.
LAZ Parking declined a request for comment.
While parking is a perennial complaint for many employees, some hospital workers who enjoy monthly passes don’t know how lucky they are.
Nick, 57, has been a diagnostic imaging technologist in the radiology department for 30 years and has held a parking permit pretty much the whole time. He said that when he started, passes were awarded through a lottery system, and he got his almost immediately.
Nick was astonished to learn of the length of the waitlist.
“Five years?” he said. “Really?”