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The "Nanny State" goes off the deep end
Growing up in New York City, where the art of dodging cars rises to the level of an Olympic sport, the thing that is drilled into every child’s head is, “Look both ways before crossing the street," even at well-marked intersections and even if you have a green light. So, I was surprised when I moved to California that this childhood lesson was apparently not shared by everyone.
In California, it’s quite common for pedestrians to blindly step into a crosswalk, scrolling on their phone, deep in conversation, or lost in music on their headphones, at an un-signaled intersection or the minute a stoplight turns green without regard to oncoming traffic. They assume that because they have the right of way (which, yes, they do, legally), “Watch out for the other guy” doesn’t apply to them.
Whatever happened to the concept of personal responsibility for one’s actions?
Pedestrian/vehicular accidents are a fact of life. People get hurt and, tragically, some are killed. But, yes, it is very tragic for anyone to lose their life that way. Who's to blame – a reckless driver or a reckless d pedestrian – can only be determined on a case-by-case basis, though, unfortunately it’s often a little bit of both with human error and some a heavy dose of bad luck thrown in.
However, like it or not, life has risks. It's unavoidable and it helps to pay attention. However, in the “nanny state," any degree of risk in life must be thoroughly eliminated, regardless of the costs or consequences.
AB 413
In October of 2023, the California State Legislature passed and the Governor signed Assembly Bill 413, referred to as the California "Daylighting" Law. The stated goal of this law is to improve safety for pedestrians at intersections by enhancing visibility for both drivers and people crossing the street.
The official “Effective Date” was January 1, 2024, but enforcement with fines will begin January 1, 2025.
AB 413 prohibits parking any vehicle,
“within 20 feet of the vehicle approach side of any marked or unmarked crosswalk.”
The term "vehicle approach side" refers to the right-hand side of the street for vehicles approaching an intersection. The idea is that pedestrians crossing an intersection need a clear line of sight to their left, to see the approaching vehicles, as they step into the crosswalk. Conversely, drivers need a clear view of pedestrians who might be entering the crosswalk on their right as their vehicle approaches the intersection.
For pedestrians crossing on the far side of the intersection (ahead of the vehicle's travel path) and drivers going through the intersection, visibility is less of an issue due to the width of the street (to the left of the pedestrian and ahead of the driver).
The official rationale for the need for AB 413 is that California's pedestrian fatality rate is too high and approximately half of all traffic-related injuries to pedestrians occur near intersections (according to national Federal Highway Administration data).
Other cities claim that implementing “daylighting” measures decreased pedestrian injuries but there is no significant data available, either way, for larger urban areas such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Oakland.
Still, this all sounds sensible -- after all, protecting pedestrians is a very good thing, right? -- until you look more closely. The socioeconomic impacts of these state-mandated parking reductions will be far-reaching, yet few of those impacts appear to have gone into the calculus used by the lawmakers who created AB 413.
Impacts on parking
At a typical 90-degree intersection of 2 two-way streets, official reports say there will potentially be a loss of as many as 4 parking spaces. I use the term “potentially” because some intersections, particularly in high-density, urban, downtown areas, already have fewer parking spaces adjacent to major intersections because of transit stops, driveways, loading zones, or other restrictions.
However, in the vast majority of instances, statewide, in urban, ex-urban, suburban, and rural areas, parking is currently allowed directly adjacent to crosswalks on all sides of the intersections.
According to SFMTA, AB 413 will eliminate approximately 14,000 on-street parking spaces in San Francisco, representing about 5% of the city's total street parking spaces. However, there is a lack of clarity about whether this restriction impacts just one side of the street (the right side) or both sides.
As illustrated below, in this state agency graphic published by local news organizations, the impact is on both sides, regardless of the direction of oncoming traffic. That means 8 parking spaces are eliminated at every intersection, instead of 4 parking spaces.
This suggests that San Francisco has lost as many as 28,000 on-street parking spaces, or 10% of the city’s total. Lawmakers admit that AB 413 will have a much greater impact in large cities than in suburban areas.
And all this is coming on the heels of the State Legislature having passed more than 160 laws in the past 10 years, allowing more high-density housing development to provide fewer and fewer, off-street parking spaces for each resident, and in some instances of super-high-density development to require no off-street parking at all.
What could possibly go wrong?
However, the loss of parking spaces in San Francisco is not the only impact that needs to be considered. What are the personal and economic impacts on the city’s residents and businesses, and what are the costs?
Impacts on Residents and Businesses
It is well-known that San Francisco is one of the most difficult cities in California to find a parking space, even though it may be the most “walkable” city in the state.
Anyone who has ever gone to San Francisco on a weekend evening to go to a restaurant or visit a friend knows that finding a parking space can be daunting. Parking spaces for San Francisco residents are at such a premium that an enclosed, well-maintained, garage space can rent for as much as the cost of a small apartment in other cities.
(One of the most immediate outcomes of AB 413 will be raising the cost of parking space rental costs throughout the city.)
But what about the people who depend on their car or pickup for their work or to get to their job? How do they absorb the loss of parking near their apartment? How do they pay the inevitable increase in tickets and fines for violating this new parking ban, by necessity?
However, the impacts on small businesses are arguably worse. Unless the city only wants the kind of businesses that can exist on the foot traffic from those living within a few blocks, the loss of parking from AB 413 will have severe economic consequences for San Francisco's business community.
Parking is the lifeblood of retail and service businesses. But, this loss of parking is particularly hard on small businesses like restaurants and specialty stores. Their existence depends on their customers’ ability to drive from other parts of the city or the Bay Area to their location. And this is coming at a time when San Francisco is already suffering from small business attrition, closing restaurants and lack of foot traffic on once vibrant neighborhood streets that never recovered after the Pandemic.
And then there are the significant increases in parking tickets and fines – particularly because the law does not require the city to put up any signs or mark any curbs to notify motorists of the new parking restriction.
Boy, that will really go over well with local businesses, when their customers are constantly getting fined. And, remember to bring your tape measure every time to park near an intersection, anywhere in the state, because you'll have to carefully measure that 20 foot distance from unmarked curbs to the bumper of your car, lest parking enforcement makes the measurement for you. Oh, and then always take a photo of your car so you can bring it to traffic court to protest the fines.
Then there’s the regressive nature of this punitive regulation: which will hurt the poorest working people the most: who can’t afford to rent a garage parking space. Once again, another progressive law to protect us from ourselves that hurts working people the most.
So much for social equity.
And, why the heck does AB 413 apply 24/7? Letting people park their cars on city streets, overnight after certain hours, has been the logical standard forever: How many “pedestrians” are strolling around at 1 A.M.?
What is the
possible rationale for this regulatory overkill?
None of this was considered by legislators in Sacramento. Their sole focus was on data about mandating zero pedestrian accidents at intersections.
So, let’s look at data about accidents.
In Los Angeles, last year (from January 1st through October 31st) 134 pedestrians were killed by vehicles in all circumstances (not just at intersections). If we extrapolate that number of to deaths for a year, it’s approximately 156 deaths. According to the 2020 US Census, Los Angeles has a population of 3,898,747 people.
134 deaths represents .00004 percent of the population of Los Angeles.
In 2020, there were approximately 1,050 pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in the entire state of California. Less than half of those were at intersections. But even if we counted them all, that is 1,050 deaths out of California’s approximate 39 million residents.
1,050 deaths represents .00003 percent of the population of California.
If the goal is to protect people from dying from being hit by cars, and it is so important to eliminate this public health hazard that it justifies disregarding all the associated, negative, socio-economic consequences of AB 413, then let’s examine how that compares to other, equally deadly public health hazards.
Comparative risks and impacts.
If we only look at “household” accidents approximately 3,850 people who die every year in California from common accidents in their homes, such as choking, dying in a fire, falling, poisoning from food and medications, and drowning in their bathtub or swimming pool!
Wait! 3,850 deaths represents .0001 percent of the population of California.
This data shows that being at home in California is much more dangerous than crossing the street!
OMG, what is to be done about this!?
We must pass more “protective” laws, immediately, to save the “public” from itself!
Among many other things, we must mandate that…
- No one can take a bite of food greater than one ounce and they must chew their food for at least 30 seconds before swallowing.
- No one can own a pack of matches or lighter fluid or a gas range without being licensed.
- All floors must be rubberized to be state certified, “non-lethal surfaces.”
- No medications can be taken, except in the presence of a registered nurse, and
- Bathtubs and residential swimming pools can only be filled up to 8 inches of water or the dimension from the tip of your nose to your ear… to prevent cases where you’ve had a glass of wine, taken some Advil, felt a bit faint, fallen, and landed on your side in the puddle, unconscious.
There has to be a better way to ensure pedestrian safety at intersections: methods that differentiate dense, urban, commercial streets from placid, suburban neighborhoods; methods that empower pedestrians to make their presence known; methods that cities and towns can reasonably implement, and California drivers are not uniquely ostracized for.
Finally, I ask you to consider just one of the unassessed, financial impacts of this new law: parking meters.
Everywhere in the state there are millions of parking meters (San Francisco, alone, has 320,000) that are permanently mounted to allow cars to park adjacent to crosswalks. Are cities supposed to abandon all of these and lose the revenue, move them, rebuild their streetscapes, what?
And all this expense of taxpayer money and loss of economic vitality for something that is less dangerous than hanging around in your apartment?
The world has lost its mind.
Bob Silvestri is a long-time Mill Valley resident, the Editor of the Marin Post, and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization dedicated to bringing the community's voice to government decision-making and funded exclusively by individuals and nonprofit donors. Please consider donating now to support our work.