San Francisco said it would crack down on motorists parking in bike lanes — and it did, for a while. But the change didn’t stick.
In the fall of 2024, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, under Mayor London Breed, began what it called “intensive” neighborhood-based parking enforcement. That plan directed parking control officers to look out for and cite parking in bike lanes, as well as other violations like blocking sidewalks or in daylighting zones, in an effort to improve street safety.
The result was a sharp spike in tickets for obstructing bike lanes: Enforcement peaked in March of 2025 at more than a thousand tickets. But since then, the growth in enforcement has completely reversed itself, with tickets averaging less than 300 per month in the latter half of 2025.
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SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte said that the agency is continuing in its “efforts to make sure spaces like bike lanes, crosswalks and sidewalks are kept clear and comfortable for everyone who uses them.” The agency’s neighborhood based enforcement plan is also still in place, though the agency has said that citations for specific violations ebb and flow over time. (SFMTA is not the only agency that can issue parking tickets. Police, sheriffs and the parks department can issue them as well.)…