…and was thinking of next month making my first trip back to SF since I left in 2002, but fuck it.

Thank you, SF Gate, for reminding me of just a few of the reasons I left the City with my middle finger firmly outstretched to begin with.

Yes, the City is beautiful, the weather gorgeous, and at times it can be one big E-Ticket ride for consenting adults, but parking and traffic in SF is deplorable. It always has been, and probably always will be until the city fathers get serious and actually do something about it—like building parking garages—instead of simply sitting back and milking the cash cow known as fines.

Don’t get me wrong—after spending sixteen years of my life there, I came to know and love San Francisco as much as anyone the City has ever taken to her bosom. But toward the end, the daily annoyances of living in those 49 square miles—things that I was either able to ignore (or at least accept as the price of admission) when I was a newly minted San Franciscan—were no longer offset by all the things San Francisco had going for it, and became unbearable.

Disregarding for the moment the absolutely ridiculous cost of living, pervasive street people, and the general surliness of the population that descended upon Baghdad by the Bay after the dot-com bust, for the most part it was actually the simple act of getting around town that generated the most aggravation for me. It was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If you left your car at home, you were at the mercy of notoriously unreliable public transportation. If you drove, you’d have to pray that the parking gods were in a mood to smile upon you.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d been on a streetcar that was designated to go to a particular location, only to have the driver unceremoniously announce halfway there that everyone would have to get off and wait for the next train because he was turning around and going back downtown. WTF?

If you took your car, you could get anywhere you wanted in 20-30 minutes, but oftentimes you’d spend an equal amount of time searching for a parking space once you got where you were going. And if you were lucky enough to secure a parking spot, there was no guarantee you’d return to your car sometime later and find it unmolested. (One night, while living on Folsom Street, I watched out my window as a gang of teenagers with baseball bats in hand, simply ran down the street, smashing every car window they passed. I called the police while this was happening and was told “We’ll get someone out there.” Of course no one from the Ess Eff Pee Dee ever showed up.)

It was tough readjusting to the less frenetic pace of life in Phoenix when I first moved back here in ‘02, but six years later I can say quite honestly that I can’t see submerging myself in the madness that is San Francisco—even for a visit—ever again.