Will California’s New Parking Restrictions Improve Pedestrian Safety?

California has launched new parking enforcement laws designed to protect pedestrians. Assembly Bill 413, known as the “Daylighting Rule,” increases the distance motorists can legally park their vehicles from an intersection or crosswalk. The goal is to improve safety by enhancing visibility by eliminating parking spaces near crossings.

The new rule will prohibit vehicles from parking, stopping, or standing within 20 feet of the approach side of any crosswalk. This pertains to both marked and unmarked crosswalks, meaning it encompasses every single intersection within the state. But it also pertains to all crossing zones with or without curb extensions or signage indicating that pedestrians might be present. Due to the lacking specificity of the latter provision, enforcement will be open to at least some amount of interpretation.

“This law is about saving lives,” stated California Assembly Member Laura Friedman, author of the bill. “By creating a clear zone at intersections, we’re giving drivers and pedestrians the visibility they need to avoid collisions.”

For those interested in learning the finer details of the rule, Assembly Bill 413 is available on the California legislature website. While the law is technically already active, December was the month that violators were being issued warnings. Fines started this month, with most of the state seeing roughly $40 penalties. Individual municipalities will be able to set their own fines, however. San Diego, which has yet to formally settle on a price, is assumed to demand $65 for violations with another $12.50 going to the state.

This is another Vision Zero initiative designed to improve pedestrian safety and has predictably used the pragmatic moniker of “Daylighting” since labeling it as the latest parking restriction probably wouldn’t have won over the locals. The obvious downside of the new rule is that it is going to drastically reduce curbside parking in cities. While this may not be much of an issue in less developed parts of the state, residents of urban areas will certainly notice.

Advocates of the new rule, and cities that have already implemented it, have alleged that it has no impact on parking. But this is a matter of semantics. “Daylighting does not remove legal parking spaces. It prevents parking in areas where it is illegal to park by state and city law,” stated the City of Lancaster’s Public Works Department.

But this glosses over the fact that many legal parking spaces have been removed to make way for the new law and feels intentionally misleading. It would be better assert that the loss of parking is believed to translate into safety roadways. We know that pedestrian-related fatalities have come up in recent years and government research presumes that the change could reduce pedestrian-involved crashes by up to 30 percent annually. The real concern should be whether the presumed benefits outweigh the costs.

I would argue that a majority of Vision Zero initiatives ultimately revolve around making private transportation less useful and more expensive in an effort to force people to pivot toward public transit. They likewise operate under the premise that the responsibility of safety has to be shared among everyone, urban solutions work in rural environments, and that the tenets of environmentalism should play a significant role in all proposals.

A Vision Zero Network solution typically comes down to lowering traffic speeds, installing more automated enforcement cameras, amassing traffic data wherever possible, and/or gradually stripping away driving privileges by advocating for more technologies that would have vehicles pilot themselves and laws that make passenger vehicles less useful. This is all being done under the banner of a never-ending quest to eliminate all traffic fatalities until we live in a perfectly safe society where nothing bad ever happens and cars barely exist. Vision Zero is tacitly anti-automobile.

But not all of their ideas are something automotive enthusiasts should scoff at and this arguably includes the euphemistic daylighting. Anyone who does a lot of urban driving will tell you that pedestrians aren’t always looking when they cross the street. Creating more visual space around an intersection can undoubtedly help with this by improving visibility.

Imagine a scenario where a large truck has been parked directly in front of a crosswalk that you’re approaching in your vehicle, making it impossible to see if anywhere is standing there. Now, imagine that same intersection with 20 feet of clearance at every corner. It could give drivers just enough advanced warning to avert disaster should someone move into the street suddenly.

It doesn’t change the fact that daylighting will drastically reduce roadside parking in cities. But it will probably save a few lives and likely won’t be felt in neighborhoods where there’s more space for vehicles. Your author believes that Vision Zero’s best work typically pertains to finding ways of separating pedestrians and vehicles from sharing space. However, this typically comes at the expense of drivers and not the pedestrians that are given priority via lane reductions, lower speed limits, and restricting where vehicles can be in the first place. It also ignores other factors — such as pedestrians and motorists being inundated with technological distractions (e.g. phones) and the increased mass of modern vehicles reducing pedestrian survivability.

We’re more curious as to your take on the issue. Would you be fine losing some parking space in exchange for improved visibility at crossing areas or should everyone (including pedestrians) simply be more mindful when they approach an intersection? Do you think California has come up with a winner here or are you fed up with Vision Zero’s traffic solutions in general?

[Image: Anatoliy Tesouro/Shutterstock]

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Source: The Truth About Cars