When San Francisco implemented a statewide daylighting law at all of its intersections in January 2025, nearly 14,000 parking spots were rendered obsolete in the name of improving safety and visibility at crosswalks for drivers and pedestrians alike. Now, the city has announced what it plans to do with the vacant spaces.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency unveiled the Safety Zone Program, which is slated to transform former parking spots with murals, planters and painted signage through a 24-month pilot initiative called Community Corners. In a Friday Instagram post, pedestrian advocacy organization Streets for All SF said the city will also soon begin work to install “soft-hit posts, bike corrals and concrete islands at high-injury intersections.”
Community Corners was approved by the SFMTA board on June 16. Eligible applicants for the program are limited to nonprofit organizations, community benefit districts and local businesses, who must pay a $50 registration fee in addition to insurance and other costs for installing and maintaining planters, murals and other infrastructure.
“We know that daylighting is an effective strategy for improving safety around our city’s intersections, and the Safety Zone Program and Community Corners will go a long way in helping us make more intersections safer, faster,” District 7 supervisor Myrna Melgar said in a news release from SFMTA. “This work is important to the goals of the Street Safety Act, and our collective commitment to ending severe and fatal traffic crashes by designing safer streets for all San Franciscans.”
Daylighting forbids parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk, and people in violation of the law are subject to fines of up to $40 if they park on unmarked curbs near crosswalks, or $108 for parking on curbs that are already painted red. Notably, when daylighting went into effect in California, the law did not require individual cities to implement new signs or repaint every affected curb, leaving some drivers in the dark when they found themselves parking on streets with no visible infrastructure informing them of it…