As of January 1 of this year, cities in California may cite vehicles parked illegally on most public streets within 20 feet approaching a crosswalk — and as of this week, Alameda City Council has taken action to add this violation to the city's master fee schedule.

Here's a graphical explanation for why this matters:

Increasing visibility in an intersection increases the odds that fast-moving motorists will see approaching pedestrians, shorter children on foot, children zipping on scooters, and other drivers — and will have sufficient time to brake.

While there's some inconvenience in removing what used to be a parking spot, it's a net benefit in terms of preventing unexpected and dangerous crashes at seemingly small and quiet residential intersections, such as the crashes I've recently posted about at Pearl/Calhoun.

The changes are referred to as daylighting an intersection. Here's an overhead view of the sight-lines that are opened up with "daylight" for drivers when parking is not allowed within 20 feet of a crosswalk:

Illegally parked vehicles are identified with red X's. The cars driving past those red X'ed vehicles have much narrower cones of vision, as compared to the cars driving past only green checked vehicles. Note which of the pedestrians are seen by the drivers, and which aren't. Source: City of Pinole

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According to the metaphysical ontology of the California Vehicle Code, a crosswalk need not be marked with physical stripes in order to be a Crosswalk. Unmarked crosswalks extend out perpendicularly from all street corners in California — and each is still a crosswalk in the same legal sense as a physically visible crosswalk.

Assembly Bill 413 — the bill that enabled this form of citation on January 1 — put into state law a set of street-safety policies known as "daylighting" that had already been pioneered by cities including Alameda. According to Assemblymember Alex Lee's office:

Roughly a quarter of all traffic fatalities nationwide occur around intersections, and daylighting is a proven and widely accepted measure to improve road safety. In Hoboken, New Jersey, for instance, city officials have credited daylighting as a crucial factor in curbing traffic fatalities. New York City has committed to implementing daylighting at 1,000 intersections citywide. Cities in California including San Francisco, Alameda, and Fremont all adopted daylighting before AB 413, and the law will ensure that the traffic measure is implemented across cities statewide.

For an overview of Alameda's policies and progress since 2019 on daylighting intersections with strategically placed red paint along the city's streets with the highest risks of crashes and injuries, see this city webpage. (The city fell behind in this work when the Public Works department did not have a full complement of engineers on staff; last the Transportation Commission has heard, PW has all its positions filled and is moving more swiftly with planned daylighting projects.)

Alameda City Council, at its recent June 3 meeting, adopted a new fine that the city's parking enforcement staff will be apply to vehicles parked or stopped in those critical 20 feet leading up to a crosswalk:

from the proposed master fee schedule as revised on 5/28

For example, here's the crash-stricken SUV left behind at the intersection of Pearl St and Calhoun St. This is exactly where a vehicle should not be parked:

My photo of looking south on Pearl St. (at Calhoun St.) on the morning of Friday, June 6.

The presence of a parked vehicle in that position decreases visibility of oncoming cross traffic (which does not have a stop sign) and increases the odds of yet another crash at this intersection.

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After taking the above picture in the morning, I meant to call it in, but when passing through the intersection again in the evening, it had been removed. If another car parks there in the coming days, I'll be ready to report it.

Should the city start aggressively ticketing vehicles parked in these dangerous spots? Yes and no...

Learning these new rules of the road are going to take a while. Drivers may be used to knowing they can't, say, park blocking a fire hydrant, even when there is no marking paint. But understanding why you can't park snug at a corner is not yet common knowledge.
What the City of Alameda can do is roll out the red paint. Make it very explicit where people shouldn't park, so we don't have to guess. (Thanks to city staff for acknowledging my request for red paint at Pearl/Calhoun.)
Where enforcement is likely most necessary is with delivery drivers. As red paint and changing laws open up visibility at neighborhood street intersections, all those delivery drivers will take advantage of this extra convenient space to temporarily park when they deliver to a block. But that's actually the worst of all worlds — instead of just having a personal car crowding an intersection, there's instead a Sprinter van of twice that height randomly appearing and lingering. Probably the only way to make Amazon delivery service partners, UPS subsubcontractors, and USPS employees-contracted-to-Amazon follow these rules is going to involve issuing a lot of tickets.
The best long term solution involves redesigning intersections. When sidewalks are extended at intersection corners with bulbouts, then there's enhanced visibility for all, plus a well defined curb to keep out parking cars and delivery trucks.

Start telling your neighbors: Don't crowd the intersection when parking your car. This is particularly important on the approach (or upstream) side of each intersection.

And when you see a repeat offender parking to snug to the corner, file a report through City of Alameda SeeClickFix or call (510) 522-PARK.

Just like smoking inside airplanes and offices and restaurants and bars, parking snug at the corner may have once seemed harmless — but we now know it puts everyone at risk. It’s time to kick the habit.

That's not a parking spot near the corner — it's an important line of sight