New law in effect this year could surprise drivers with a $64 parking ticket

A new street safety law will bar drivers from parking near crosswalks to lower crashes between cars and pedestrians. Parking within 20 feet of crosswalks will come with the risk of a $64 ticket. The license plate in the photograph was obscured for the privacy of the driver. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Editors’ note: This story was first published on Dec. 11. It has been updated with information about the city’s plan to issue warnings to drivers who violate the law during the first three months of 2025.

Drivers who park within 20 feet of a crosswalk will be risking a ticket starting in January, under a new California street safety law.

Supporters say the change will give everyone on the street a better view as they approach intersections, making serious crashes between cars, pedestrians and bikes less common.

But in Berkeley, like cities across the state, there are many intersections where parking spots close to crosswalks don’t have red curbs or other signs to alert drivers that the area is off-limits — meaning someone could pull into a space thinking they are parking legally, only to find a ticket when they return to their car. In some cases, soon-to-be-illegal spots even have city parking meters, or are marked as loading zones.

City officials say they don’t know how many such intersections there are in Berkeley, but estimate it will take years to mark all the spaces where parking will be prohibited under the law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023.

Berkeley parking enforcement officers will issue warnings to drivers who violate the law during the first three months of 2025, city officials say, then start writing tickets on April 1. The City Council signed off at its meeting Tuesday on a plan to set the ticket for a violation at $64 in most cases.

The law applies at mid-block crosswalks and all intersections, regardless of whether they have painted crosswalks. It prohibits parking within 20 feet of the corner in the direction traffic approaches the intersection (the right-side for two-way streets and both sides for one-way). The restricted area shrinks to 15 feet at intersections that have sidewalk “bulb-outs” extending the curb into the street. For reference, a 2024 Toyota Prius is just over 15 feet long.

A graphic prepared by the City of Pinole and distributed by the City of Berkeley shows what parking spaces are off-limits under the state’s new “daylighting” law. Credit: City of Pinole

Street safety advocates point out that a car parked close to a street corner blocks the view other drivers have as they approach the intersection, giving them much less time to spot a pedestrian stepping into the crosswalk, or cross traffic from bikes and cars. Restricting parking near crosswalks, known in traffic engineering circles as “daylighting” intersections, has been credited with saving lives and reducing crashes in cities such as San Francisco and Hoboken, New Jersey.

“By removing visible obstructions for drivers at key locations, this statewide law helps motorists better see the transition point where people walk onto pavement,” city spokesman Matthai Chakko wrote in an email. “While yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks has long been state law, these locations have remained one of the most dangerous places for a person to walk or roll across in their wheelchair.”

The advocacy group Walk Bike Berkeley has cheered the law as a common-sense step to make streets safer. But its members also expressed concerns in a letter to the City Council this week about relying on tickets to enforce the restriction. They called for the city to set aside funding to paint curbs red and install barriers so that people don’t park in the newly illegal spots to begin with, which the group contends would be a more “effective and equitable” way of making streets safer.

“My hope is that by the time the ticketing starts, that there will be many more red-curbed areas,” Walk Bike Berkley member Liza Lutzker said in an interview. “The idea is not to ticket people — the idea is to get the safety improvement.”

Berkeley has taken steps to limit parking near crosswalks during repaving and street safety projects over the past several years, city officials point out. As part of a project along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South Berkeley, for example, workers painted the curbs near several intersections red and installed plastic posts to further deter people from parking there. Going forward, spokesperson Seung Lee said city staff are working to identify intersections that need changes, and plan to prioritize those near schools and senior centers, as well as along high-injury streets and in “equity priority areas,” for similar work.

But in the meantime, it will often be up to drivers to beware that the empty parking space they’ve spotted at the corner might be too good to be true.