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Forget Parking: Number Of Cars In The Bay Area Rising

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- It might not be rising as fast as the population, but the number of cars in San Francisco competing for a finite amount of land on which to drive and park is going up.

The number of vehicles registered in San Francisco and its surrounding counties has been climbing over the past five years, according to the DMV.

At the end of 2015, 494,000 were registered in San Francisco alone, and 1.3 million in Alameda County.

"There's still an increase in the number of cars in the city. That concerns us because we need that land for housing. We need that land for jobs, and for public space," Ratna Amin, Transportation Policy Director with SPUR, told KCBS.

Amin says the city's Transit First policy is gaining traction with new residents.

"The majority of new residents in San Francisco are not bringing cars, or buying cars, and that's because we do have pretty great transit," Amin said.

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