Daylighting

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Daylighting, also known as intersection daylighting, is a technique used to increase safety for all people—especially children, families, seniors, and people with disabilities—by ensuring cars/trucks aren’t parked within the 20+ feet before a crosswalk. This applies to both marked crosswalks or “unmarked” crosswalks (which aren’t painted).

Daylighting makes it easier for people driving cars to see people crossing the street as well as cars turning onto the street and makes it easier for people crossing the street to see if a car is coming before crossing the street. This is especially helpful and critical for children, seniors, and people with disabilities, who may be shorter or closer to the ground and unable to see over a car/truck. Daylighting has been found to decrease car crashes injuring a person walking by 30% (source). Helpful videos about daylighting can be found here.

The National Association of City Transportation. Officials (NACTO) recommends daylighting 20–25 feet, while the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recommends daylighting 20–30 feet. 43 states do not allow parking within the 20 feet before a crosswalk or intersection.

Daylighting is most effective when implemented using physical objects (e.g. large rocks, bike racks/parking, planters, benches, tables and chairs, bikeshare stations, bioswales, plastic posts) in the 20+ feet before a crosswalk. Example treatments can be found here. A New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) analysis found that daylighting with physical objects in it (aka “hardened daylighting”) significantly increased safety—reducing injuries by about 50%—while daylighting without physical objects didn’t significantly increase safety.

In 2019, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution that stated that “safety concerns take precedent over the loss of parking” and that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA") “create a plan and program to systematically implement additional daylighting on High Injury Corridors [also known as the High-Injury Network] and where SFMTA staff determine it is needed” and that SFMTA implement daylighting at 1,200 intersections within the next year.

In October 2023, California Assembly Bill 413 (AB 413) was signed into law, prohibiting people from stopping or parking within the 20 feet before a crosswalk. Starting on January 1, 2024, the law authorized cities—including San Francisco—to issue warnings to drivers for parking within the 20 feet before a crosswalk and, on January 1, 2025, authorized cities to issue citations for violating the law.

In January 2024, SFMTA said it wouldn’t add new signs or paint curbs to denote the 20 feet of daylighting, and that people would be required to follow the law—20 feet of daylighting at all crosswalks—because installing signs or painting curbs “wouldn’t be feasible” and stating that “San Francisco does not have resources to paint every crosswalk corner approaching red, and a program that relies only on paint would require repainting every corner approximately every 5 years or so, thus it would also require significant maintenance resources going forward.”

Unfortunately, SFMTA didn't start issuing warnings until November 11, 2024—more than 300 days after the Agency was authorized to issue warnings—and SFMTA stated, on November 10, it would begin issuing ($40) citations on January 1, 2025.

On December 10, 2024, the Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution urging SFMTA “to paint red zones at every crosswalk and intersection in San Francisco […] reinforcing the need to maintain clear sightlines at intersections, and ultimately improving overall traffic safety for all” and referencing the 20 feet of daylighting stipulated in AB 413 for all crosswalks.

On February 20, 2025—only 51 days after SFMTA theoretically began issuing citations for daylighting violations—SFMTA eliminated enforcement of daylighting violations, allowing cars to be parked zero inches from a crosswalk and decreasing safety for all people.

On February 27, 2025, SFMTA’s City Traffic Engineer directed staff to paint only 10 feet of daylighting at crosswalks with stop signs. In addition to this unnecessarily decreasing safety for all people, the City Traffic Engineer did this without a legal ordinance permitting SFMTA to paint less than 20 feet of curb red for daylighting after “a finding that the different distance is justified by established traffic safety standards,” as required by law. The internal memorandum by the City Traffic Engineer provides no finding or justification for having less than 20 feet of daylighting at crosswalks with stop signs.

In addition, SFMTA is only painting curbs red to demarcate daylighting, rather than installing physical objects in daylighting spaces—or allowing residents to do so—to increase safety further.