Sacramento stalls on enforcing daylighting law aimed at improving pedestrians safety
SACRAMENTO — A California law aimed at pedestrian safety now bans cars from parking 20 feet from intersections.
The law allows cities to issue fines to violators, but the City of Sacramento has not issued those fines even in the face of what some have called a pedestrian safety crisis.
Slow Down Sacramento founder Isaac Gonzalez is calling on the city to speed up its conversion of city streets to follow state law.
"We really shouldn't wait until people get hurt before we actually act and follow state law," Gonzalez said. "I think, unfortunately, in the city, we get decision paralysis. Where do we start? The problem is so huge."
The so-called daylighting law requires all California cities to create 20 feet of space on the approaching side of intersections to prevent collisions.
A City of Sacramento spokesperson confirmed that the city has not removed all meters, has not started red striping all the intersections, and is still working to identify how many spots need to be removed.
Asad Mohammadi lives in Natomas, down the street from a new "quick-build" temporary traffic safety installation the city created after two pedestrians were killed in separate collisions. The installation went up after the second deadly collision.
Asad Mohammadi /lives near deadly crash
"It was a very sad day," Mohammadi said. "After that incident happened, then they put the sign up, they should have put it at the beginning."
Sacramento's police department reports that so far this year, there have been 13 deadly collisions on city streets. Last year, there were 34. The year before, there were 55.
Sacramento's own law and legislation committee declared an emergency in 2024 over the number of pedestrians killed in roadway collisions.
"Let's talk about the cost-benefit ratio here," Gonzalez said. "What does it cost to paint a curb red, versus what does it cost for someone to die and for us to pay out a big lawsuit? I would rather be on the side of painting the curb red."
The city council voted to approve a $25 fine starting July 1 for violators of the law.
It will need to ID and remove spaces to begin that enforcement. What the rollout of that enforcement will look like is still unclear.
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