If you’re a North Park resident, there’s a good chance you or someone you know has received a daylighting ticket this year.
The city of San Diego wrote more than 8,000 of them in the first half of 2025, the vast majority issued in neighborhoods where parking is in short supply, according to an inewsource analysis.
Enforcement officers began ticketing drivers across the city this year for parking next to a curb within 20 feet of any crosswalk — marked or not.
Officials first issued warnings before enforcing a $77.50 fine. A month later, the citation rose to $117 — an increase that came as San Diego sought additional revenue to cover its quarter billion-dollar budget deficit.
Daylighting, explained: The state Legislature passed AB-413 with the goal of reducing traffic accidents. The practice, known as daylighting, is meant to increase visibility for drivers to see around the corners at intersections. Forty-three states already have a similar law.
No markings, no problem: “The evaluations and implementation of curbs and red curbs require significant employee resources to implement and are not required by California state law,” a city spokesperson said in a December 2024 statement to inewsource. “We will continue curb evaluations with consideration of the limited staffing and funding resources the City has to account for 16,000 intersections.”
Yes, but: AB-413 passed in October 2023, meaning cities across California had more than a year to prepare. And at least one city is pausing daylighting enforcement all together: San Francisco cited confusion and frustration from residents over unpainted curbs.
For context: Nearly 21,000 tickets were given for red zone infractions in San Diego. That’s a small fraction of the nearly 244,000 parking-related citations issued from January through June.
Urban overindexing: About two-thirds of the tickets came from ZIP codes in and around Mid-City, a collection of near-downtown neighborhoods that have historically struggled to keep up with a high demand for parking. Only 20% of the city’s population resides there, though the area includes popular commercial districts. (Our analysis found many tickets in neighborhoods like University Heights and Normal Heights that were issued several blocks away from main thoroughfares.)
Now what: We don’t know whether the rate of parking enforcement will increase or decrease in the second half of this year. That said, daylighting revenue alone could amount to nearly $3 million by the end of 2025 if current trends persist.
Check out the map to see which areas of San Diego saw the highest — and lowest — levels of daylighting-related ticketing:
inewsource investigative reporter Jake Kincaid contributed to this report.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.