>> building a better bay area. moving forward. issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. are you tired of your commute? you're definitely not alone. new research finds san francisco is home to the costliest commute in the whole country. we'll find out why. why in just how much time and cash it's stealing from bay area drivers every year. also, did you know today is national cheap flights day? but is this really the best time to get a deal? sky's the founder of travel website going .com will join us to debunk this idea and share some news you can use about saving on your next flight. but first, a major development in the battle over encampments for the unhoused in san francisco today. san francisco officials went before the ninth circuit court to appeal an injunction

that is temporarily blocking the city from being able to clear homeless encampments. mayor london breed was passionate afterwards about why the city needs this. >> we are compassionate, we are supportive. >> we continue to help people. >> but this is not the way any thing goes in san francisco is not the way. joining us live now to discuss this is san francisco city attorney david chu. >> david, thank you so much for your time today. i know it's a busy day for you. thanks for having me on. so can you briefly explain to our viewers the injunction that's in place as a result? i guess, of the lawsuit by the coalition on homelessness against the city? >> sure. so last fall, homeless advocates led by the coalition on homelessness filed a lawsuit against san francisco challenging our practices regarding homeless encampments and a few months later, a judge, donna ryu, issued a preliminary injunction, an emergency order preventing our city from enforcing against, quote, invol

monetarily homeless individuals. a half a dozen laws that otherwise would prohibit sitting lying or sleeping on our streets or public spaces. and this order is to remain in place as long as the number of homeless individuals exceeds the number of shelter beds until, fortunately, it's in the context of the fact that in recent years, san francisco has spent billions of dollars providing services and shelter to homeless individuals more than any other city in the west coast. every year, our city workers are engaging and providing services and shelter to thousands of individuals. we always lead with a model of services first, and this is in the midst of a real national crisis. but unfortunately, this lawsuit and this injunction has exacerbate std street conditions very significantly. it's really upset the balance between our city's ability to provide compassionate shelter and services for unhoused individuals. but at the same time, it is hamstrung our ability to maintain health and

safety and safe streets. it's put our city in an impossible situation. it's been very difficult to figure out what to do here with this order in place. >> so as the city's lead lawyer, you went and appealed this. and what are you hoping the judge will do at this point? >> so we appeal this up to the ninth circuit. this had been a san francisco matter, but this case has implications for all of the western united states, and that is the ninth circuit and its jurisdiction in. there are a number of issues that we discussed during oral argument today. one of them involved. and we were very gratified to hear a major concession on the part of opposing counsel. as i mentioned before, the order says that we can't enforce certain laws against involuntarily homeless individuals, but it was very unclear what that meant and what has happened since the injunction was in place is over half of all unhoused individuals

that we would approach to provide offers of shelter would literally reject those offers, or we would learn that these individuals actually had housing elsewhere. but for some reason chose to keep a tent. so had been making a very difficult situation even more challenging because we couldn't enforce our city laws against those individuals. well, today the coalition on homelessness conceded that if you refuse an offer of shelter, if you have housing elsewhere, you can't be immune from laws being enforced against you. when it comes to how we are dressing tent encampments on our streets. >> i see. so if you had an option, then you are not involuntarily homeless. but the coalition, i think, had said that the city has not really been sincere in the way it offers shelter to some of the homeless. and i like to understand a little better how you go about that, right? the offer that you might make before trying to clear the folks or the encampment outs.

>> well, respectfully, obviously, we have a difference of opinion with the coalition on homelessness on that. what we do is every day, depending on how many shelter beds there are available, we have outreach workers that will approach individuals living in tent encampments and od our hope is e individuals take us up on those offers. what has happened since this injunction went into effect is a lot of these individuals said, nope, i'm just going to stay here. we have been told that their lawyers advised them that they should not accept those shelter offers or we learn that they have tents on the streets while they actually have a shelter bed in our system. and from our perspective, that's not acceptable. so we're trying to make sure that every aspect of our system is being used every night of the week to house as many people as we can. >> all right. maybe i'm not the happiest person, but help me understand how this works out, because based on my understanding, the city has about twice as many homeless individuals as it does shelters . and most of the existing shelter beds are already taken

up. so how do you accommodate that? right. the people who you say you want to make shelters offers to and you are making offers to, but the math doesn't seem to work, does it? >> well, so we are only making the number of offers that we are able to given how many beds we have in a particular night. so you're absolutely right. we have spent out billions of dollars on homelessness in recent years. but in order for us to be able to house everyone who's unhoused on the streets, it would cost billions of dollars more. we know that we don't have that money at this time, but we do have shelter for thousands of individuals and what we want to make sure is that all of those beds are being used. so in any particular night, if there are 50 beds available, if there are 150 beds available, we go out and make those offers until we have enough folks who will take us up on those offers. but with this injunction in place, it's been that much harder for because these individuals are telling us that they don't want to take these offers of shelter. that's what they're being

advised in some instances by their attorneys. they have shelter elsewhere. it's been very frustrating. >> can i just ask you from the perspective of the city, why is this so important to be able to have that ability to clear these encampments? and how do you balance all that along with public safety for all your residents, unhoused or unhoused as well as the needs that particular needs that the unhoused have? >> well, i think you just actually answered part of the question. every day. we are trying to balance a compassionate approach in providing services and shelter to unhoused individuals with also being able to maintain a clean and safe streets and we're trying to do both of those at the same time. unfortunately, this injunction action has dramatically upset that balance has made it very difficult for us to maintain our streets. at the same time, we're providing care, we're trying to provide care, and folks are telling us thanks but no thanks and then at the same time, we're not able to do anything to address our streets. now, this injunction

doesn't prevent us from cleaning our streets or ensuring that there is a path for our people's travel on streets and sidewalks , particularly for disabled individuals. it doesn't prevent us from enforcing our criminal laws or health and safety codes. but as we have been trying to do that, we've been met every step of the way with motions and allegations by the coalition and homelessness that we are continuing to defend. it's been a very unfortunate, litigious environment as our city has been trying to do what we can to strike this balance of providing care and shelter and maintaining clean and safe streets. >> so i'm going to wrap this up with asking you if you know when a ruling might come down. and also, what will you do if the ninth circuit court upholds this injunction? will you take it up to the supreme court? >> so a ruling could come down as quickly as a few months from now. it could take up to a year. we just don't know what's going to happen. so we continue to

have other proceedings at the district court where this order initially came out. and we will obviously wait to see what that ruling says. and then we'll assess we'll assess our legal options at that time. >> all right. san francisco city attorney david chu, thank you so much for your time. hey, thanks for having me. my colleague luis pena, also has a complete story on this coming up today on abc7 news at four. up next, the cost of the bay area commute. it's robbing drivers of a lot more than time and three cities right here are among the top ten costliest in the nation. we'll crunch the numbers next on getting answers. >> the new arrival alarms the brotherhood of muscle power and performance pulsate with electricity, a kind of muscle they've never seen in this build . a new breed ready to sting with the all new powershot. behold the quickest, most powerful compact you've. the all

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lot more than taking time out of your day. it's also taking money out of your wallet. a new study finds san francisco is home to the costliest commute in the country and two other bay area cities are in the top ten. joining us live now to explain why is colin zarnecki, a researcher with chamber of commerce .org. colin, thanks for your time. >> thank you so much for having me appreciate it. yeah your website commissioned this study, right? >> why did you guys do it? >> sure. >> you know, especially right now for anyone who's gotten used to working from home over the last several years, return to office mandates are becoming quite common. so the study might not sit too well with with them. but we wanted to take a closer look at the real cost of commuting and put a price tag on that average daily commute and yearly cost as well. >> all right. so you looked at a lot of cities, right? how many exactly. exactly >> exactly. yeah. we looked at the most populated 170 cities across the country. and like you

said, san francisco top the list. >> in fact, let's see it. we've got a map of that you can see across the country. we do pay a throughhis. in addition to sans francisco to otheray area cities are in that top ten. >> yeah, the bay area really dominad this this list of top ten. >> and like you said spifically san francisco, you know, you're looki at $12,650 per year in in lost wages while you're stuck in traffic in san francisco. and that's more than twice as high as the as the national average, too, which is about $5,700 per year. >> wow. free mont, not too much better. $12,000 wasted. right. and sunnyvale is at number eight with $10,0 wasted. how did you figure out that was the value of the time you had to spend commuting? yeah, sure. >> so we looked at both the average, the median commute time

in cities across the country as well as the median earnings for full time year round workers. >> and we looked at basically, you know, what would the lost wages be if you weren't stuck in traffic during that time in san francisco? also ranked within the top 25 for longest commutes overall across the country. so it's really sort of a double edged sword in terms of losing wages and longest commute time overall in san francisco. >> yeah, this is a lovely spot. i-80 it's always jam packed, it seems every single day. did you see a link between these cities that had the highest commute costs? they're not all the biggest cities. i was trying to figure out what the link was. >> sure. >> you know, like you said, there's you know, there's definitely a lot of bay area cities on the top top ten, top 20. but also it's more of a story of east coast and west coast. if you look at the top five, you know, jersey cities on there, washington, d.c, new york city. so it's really a mixture

of sort of those big hubs, those big metro areas, along with some smaller cities that might be more suburban outside of a big metro city. >> yeah. we have another graph that i thought was rather interesting in which you looked at time lost. right? and how much time actually spent commuting. and this is interesting for san francisco. wow. the average commute is almost an hour. >> sure. so that's that's a round trip. we looked at. according to the census bureau data, about 58 minutes, just shy of an hour. and that's keep in mind, too, that's the media. an round trip commute. so obviously, i'm sure there's a there's a lot of folks out there thinking, well, my commute is even longer than that. so and look at fremont, just real quick, number 23 on the list in terms of just longest. >> wow. >> yes, exactly. fremont is on there, too. yeah. >> and the daily commute cost breaks down to $46. that's rather crazy. okay. so i guess

my question is, what can we do? oh, before we get to that, this is interesting. your study also found that san francisco is the costliest city for female commuters. i was curious about that. >> yeah. >> so we also know kept in mind, you know, sort of demographic breakdowns with this study. and obviously females already experienced a pay disparity in the workplace with the gender pay gap. and they're also losing out on wages while commuting to work. so san francisco topped the list for the most expensive cities for female commuters, too. when you factor in the yearly wages for females in san francisco, which you know is about $97,000 a year. so that comes out to a little more than 15,000 in lost wages for female commuters in san francisco. >> right. i mean, we make about 80, 80% of what men on average make. and guess what? we pay 100% of the gas costs. right? same, same there. so let me ask

you, what can commuters do to try to reduce their cost of commuting? >> sure. i think right now in terms of, you know, return to office policies becoming more common after the last three years, a lot of people have gotten comfortable working from home. >> um, you know, you could negotiate that within return to office mandate. you know, there is some an argument to be made about asking for employer offers to cover some or all of your of your commuting costs. you might get a few raised eyebrows if you ask that. but i think it's worth asking if you're in that situation and also obviously utilizing public transportation when you can and even carpooling. i mean, if you do have to go back and you have colleagues that are returned to the office, make the most of it and carpool together to work. >> all right. colin, i'm not sure if this makes anybody feel better. i was looking for that little nugget that might make bay area people feel just a little better. new york actually has the longest commute time,

right? it's not us. >> that's. yeah, that's the silver lining there, at least. at least it's not as long as new york. so >> all right. well, we're going to end it on that because i need something to feel good about to end with colin, thank you so much. really appreciate you coming on to share the results of your study. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> coming up next, the truth about national cheap flight day . it is today, but you may not want to book your flight the second a travel expert will reveal the tips and tricks of booking your holiday travel. and the situation with hawaii flights as well. next was rear ended at a traffic light. >> there was damage to my car, but i felt okay. the next day my neck wasn't feeling right, so my sister took me to urgent care and told me to call the barnes firm. i didn't think i had a case, but i did call. >> one 808,000,007. >> have you ever considered getting a walk in tub? well look, no further. safe steps. best offer. just got better for

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right, scott? >> well, you know, in fact, it's our eighth birthday. we it's our first year as going.com. we used to be known as scott's cheap flights but eight years ago today is the day that scott's cheap flights was born. right >> so in this new incarnation, you've been going for a year offering people deals that you guys find every day. so the perfect person to pose this question to what is national cheap flight day and how did it come about. >> yeah, so national cheap flights day is the idea that there's a day of the year when flights are cheapest to book and some people went and calculated that august 23rd seems like the time when you can get the best deals for the rest of the year. >> my issue with it is it's just not correct. i would love for there to be a cheapest day of flights for the year because we could all set our calendars by it and it would make it much more easy to be able to book cheap flights. the bad news, it's just not true. it's just not the case. the good news,

cheap flights are popping up all the time, almost always without warning. i like to think of every day as national cheap flights day. >> is there seriously no. at least best day of the week or best time of the day or best season of the year? really nothing. none of those. >> so it's one of those funny things where think about it like the stock market, you could go back and calculate in 2022, there was a single best day for stock returns last year. it just doesn't give you any predictive power for what it's going to be next year, maybe april 12th was the best day for stocks in 2022. it doesn't tell you that. oh, i should go tell my stockbroker, hey, look, make sure you buy before april 12th, because they're about to go up. it's the same with cheap flights. there's one day when you're the most cheap flights popped up. it just doesn't tell you it's going to happen next year. okay well, if that's the case, scott, then what are the tips and tricks you can offer to ensure that we get the best deals, the best thing that you can do is remember that cheap flights are popping up and

disappearing all the time. and so when those good deals pop up, remember that the better the deal, the shorter it tends to last. you know, right now there are flights available that we found for going members out of the bay area, including flights over to tokyo, getting cheap again 628 nonstop round trip flights over to dublin for 498 nonstop round trip, even flights coast to coast, back over to new york under $200, nonstop round trip. once again, those types of cheap flights are popping up. if you got used to expensive flights in the last 12 months, it's time to check fares again because they have gotten significantly cheaper. in fact, airfare as a whole is about 27% cheaper than it was at its peak in may of 2022. >> you mentioned 600 something for japan. is that on zip air? that discount carrier is that serves, i think san francisco and san jose now. >> exactly. so this is this new discount carrier flying between

tokyo and the bay area. it is offering and you know folks might hear discount carrier and might have visions of spirit frontier maybe some of the budget airlines in the us. it is much more like a full service us carrier. there's got about 32in of legroom, which is actually above average for what you see on, say, american or united. they've got meals. it is a much more plush experience than some folks might expect with a budget airline. >> okay. so i'm on reddit. yes. i'm not embarrassed to admit it. scott and i did some critics grumbling about deals for japan. have they really not been as good to asia? like, should we be skipping asia and going to europe? is that where the deals are? >> if you're hoping for the cheap flights now is the time to probably be patient with deals to japan, to japan and elsewhere in asia. >> but really start to pull the trigger on flights to europe. the reason why we just haven't seen as many cheap flights to asia nowadays is because the number of flights going between

the us and asia is down 35% compared to where we were pre-pandemic. that competition or that lack of competition between airlines means fewer cheap flights than you would see otherwise. and that's why even what we would consider to be cheap flights to tokyo, say $628 is probably about 150 or $200 more expensive than what i would have considered cheap in 2019. they're coming back. those cheap flights to asia. but i think it's going to take gradually more time. cheap flights domestically and to europe are really where you can score some great deals nowadays. >> i want to ask you also about travel to hawaii. definitely not asking you to recommend or not recommend as that is a nuanced conversation that not even all hawaii natives and residents agree on after the wildfires, which were just so devastating. but scott, should someone decide to go, what do prices look like? maybe break that down for us between the non maui islands and maui, certainly. >> so you're seeing the best

deals. if you do feel like it's the right time to go, you're seeing the best deals to other islands in the area. think places like the big island fares right now in september from san jose over to kona, nonstop for 237 bucks round trip and then some a smattering of deals as well. over to honolulu. i think those are actually going to continue to pop up even more. and the reason why is september even setting aside the devastating fires that happened on maui? september is actually the least popular month of the entire year for tourism to hawaii, largely because with school back in session, all those families who had been going over the past few months really dropped off. and so you can expect to see a lot of great deals popping up throughout september and october. not just on airfare, but also on hotel bills, car rentals and activities. >> scott, we got 30s left. when should people purchase their holiday travel tickets? >> now. >> now's the time to start looking. look, there's no guarantee cheap flights over christmas and new year is a

difficult deal to find, but they are at their best likelihood now and really for the next few weeks. you want to try to get it booked before october when airfare starts to get quite expensive for those winter holidays. final tip if you're traveling over thanksgiving, look about international flights. it's a high season for domestic flights, but for international, where thanksgiving is not a holiday, it is low season. you can really get some bargains. >> thank you so much, scott keys and going dot coms. one year anniversary. congratulations thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll take a short break.

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