SerpApi.Org
When Curtis Park resident Garrett Jensen noticed three red curbs at Second Avenue and 25th Street had been covered with gray paint, he assumed vandals had struck.
Instead, the city of Sacramento had removed the curb markings.
Before, it was obvious where vehicles could or could not park, according to Jensen. After the red paint disappeared, the curbs blended back into the concrete, leaving drivers to determine whether parking was allowed under a new California law aimed at improving visibility at intersections.
The episode occurred as Sacramento and other cities across California work to implement the new rules.
The city’s efforts include curb painting and installing “no parking” signs when possible, even though neither is required under state law. But without visible markings, advocates say the effectiveness of the rule can be harder for drivers to understand in a state where the practice has not been widely used.
While drivers can be ticketed under the new law for parking too close to intersections even without painted crosswalks or curbs, the city says it lacks the funding to quickly mark thousands of affected locations, leaving many motorists unsure where they can legally park.
The debate over daylighting in Sacramento and elsewhere comes down to implementation: Advocates want the city to do more, while city officials point to funding and staffing challenges.
What’s at issue with daylighting
Daylighting, in the context of traffic safety, is the practice of clearing an intersection of parked vehicles to increase visibility. The rule gets rid of drivers needing to stick out their necks to check for oncoming cars and eliminates the need for drivers to inch blindly forward around a curve.
Under the daylighting law, Assembly Bill 413, motorists are required to park at least 20 feet on the approach side from crosswalks and at least 15 feet from curb extensions that stick into the intersection.
One of the biggest challenges is funding, according to city spokesperson Gabby Miller. When AB 413 was passed, the state did not provide funding for local governments to implement the new rule, creating what officials describe as an unfunded mandate.
The state is exempt from reimbursing local governments for costs associated with new programs that define new violations or crimes. However, the exemption can create challenges for cities tasked with enforcing new laws.
“It’s really challenging for local governments to increasingly be required to do new things and different things, and that not come with any funding attached… especially when those things include physical changes,” said Councilmember Caity Maple, who represents Oak Park and other parts of south Sacramento.
Additionally, all curb modifications must be “reviewed, approved and delivered” by the city, Miller said. According to city code, the three red curbs in Curtis Park were not authorized.
Curtis Park curbs were unauthorized
Jensen filed a 311 request May 12 after seeing the gray paint, thinking a neighbor had covered the red markings. He later learned the opposite had happened - the red paint itself had been unauthorized.
“The curbs in question were not approved by the city to be painted red,” the city said in response to Jensen’s request.
A few months before, Curtis Park resident Dave Drotts said he witnessed two people paint the three curbs and then leave. He didn’t really question it, but he said that he avoided parking in those areas after then, even though he had previously used the spots for years.
“I think we all know what red means,” said Drotts, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years.
In early May, city staff working in the area noted the unauthorized paint on the curbs. Workers then covered the markings with gray paint to “restore the curb to its original condition,” Miller said.
A fourth red curb, which was painted by the city in 2008, was not painted over because it is an “authorized parking restriction,” Miller said.
When the three red curbs went back to gray, Drotts said he got a little confused. Did the gray paint mean something? Would he get ticketed for parking there?
A few weeks later, he saw a parking enforcement officer issuing a violation to another car for parking slightly into the gray paint. Drotts and another neighbor went to ask a couple questions.
That was when they learned about daylighting, a rule Drotts said residents had received little information about.
“We want to obey the rules, and it’s a fair rule,” Drotts said. “It just needs to be better communicated.”
Jensen said he was surprised by the city’s decision to cover the red paint with gray. In his view, the city missed an opportunity to make the curb markings official and improve safety.
“The city is choosing to waste city resources and time to paint a curb gray… They’re choosing to make the intersection less safe,” he said. “In a real gotcha, now people are parking in that gray curb zone and getting citations.”
At least three violations were issued for cars parked on 25th Street near Second Avenue after May 12, according to city records spanning through late May.
Red curbs meet funding challenges
Thousands of Sacramento intersections are affected by the daylighting law.
The city began enforcing the rule July 1, 2025, following a six-month warning period when nearly 150 warnings were issued. Only about five warnings were issued before June, according to city records obtained by The Sacramento Bee.
In September 2025, the city issued a request for proposals seeking bids for a public awareness campaign about AB 413 using state funds. Miller said the city later abandoned the contract. The city is now working with a consultant on a broader transportation safety campaign that will include information about daylighting.
Sacramento is addressing the lack of dedicated funding by incorporating curb painting and signage into existing transportation projects, including efforts to add protected bike lanes and the Franklin Boulevard complete street project that opened this week, Miller said.
The daylighting law applies to any crosswalk, marked or unmarked, and does not require painted curbs.
However, Maple said she has noticed the biggest difference in areas where curbs have been modified from gray and signs have been installed. She said painting the thousands of affected curbs would help drivers comply.
“When you’re driving down the road, you’re looking for other cars. You’re looking for other people. You are trying to abide by the laws of the road. You’re looking for stop signs and streetlights,” Maple said. “You’re not necessarily running through a list of every state law that you know about in your head, and it’s probably not reasonable for people to do that.”
What other cities are doing
Sacramento is not alone in determining how to enforce the rule, but other cities have taken different approaches.
The city of San Francisco committed in early 2025 to not issuing parking citations unless the curb is painted and fast-tracked that painting effort, saying the paint would be completed within 18 months, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. As of June, about 65% of affected curbs are painted.
In San Diego, the city took a more strong-arm approach by upping the penalty for violating daylighting to $117 from $77, according to the CBS affiliate KFMB. A local group, Strong Towns San Diego, not directly connected with the city government applied red chalk to affected curbs to help residents identify restricted areas. The city said the work still violated city code, according to NBC station KNSD.
Jensen said residents are on a “learning curve” when it comes to knowing where to park under daylighting rules, which are included in the California Department of Motor Vehicles handbook. He believes drivers will eventually recognize restricted areas the same way they recognize fire hydrants.
“Most fire hydrants are not painted, but we know to stay away when we park,” Jensen said. “We’ll get there, but again, we just are not in a position in Sacramento to be playing these games when there’s real lives being lost and injuries happening in our city.”
Despite pledging in 2017 to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2027, the city has not adjusted its funding structure, leaving the Department of Public Works reliant on competitive and time-consuming state and federal grants.
Earlier this year, the city’s Active Transportation Commission submitted a 2025 annual report with eight proposals, including funding for safer street design, school travel programs and stricter traffic controls. The City Council had not planned to discuss the commission staff report during an April meeting, but Maple pulled the item for public comment.
The city has “more things to do than we do money and time and people,” Maple said, but she encouraged residents to report problem intersections to city council members or staffers.
Jensen said he hopes officials will consider alternate solutions. The city, he said, already allows permits for painting house numbers on curbs, so maybe that could be expanded.
“We need to get serious about just simply letting neighborhood associations or PBIDs (property and business improvement districts) or other nonprofits (paint),” Jensen said. “They’re smart enough to know how to paint 20 feet of curb.”
