Costa Mesa motorists left in the dark about state’s new ‘daylighting’ law

A law prohibiting California motorists from parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk, which took effect in January 2024, gave cities a one-year grace period to educate citizens through awareness campaigns and police-issued warnings for violators, in lieu of citations.

Drafted to promote “daylighting,” or keeping intersections and places where pedestrians and bicyclists cross streets clear of parked vehicles and the visual obstructions they present, AB 413 gave local jurisdictions the flexibility to implement its mandates in a way that worked for them.

But in Costa Mesa, that transitional year didn’t happen. Instead, local police — who began citing offenders last month — backtracked, introducing the daylighting legislation in social media posts Monday.

“To allow residents and commuters time to familiarize themselves with this new law, the Traffic Safety Bureau will not begin issuing citations to vehicles parked within 20 feet of a marked or unmarked crosswalk until March 1st,” the posts read.

The city’s muddled rollout of the statewide mandate came to a head during a City Council meeting Tuesday where street safety advocates, including the Costa Mesa resident who helped draft the language of AB 413, attempted to shed daylight on the situation.

“For over 50 years we’ve known how to make intersections safer, but it’s taken the state making us do it before we started doing it,” said Russell Toler, a planning commissioner and founding member of Costa Mesa Alliance for Better Streets (CMABS).

Toler, whose brother was hit by a car last week in a crosswalk at Baker Street and Mendoza Drive, said pedestrians often contend with cars making right-hand turns on red lights and cutting across traffic to make left-hand turns. “It’s an intense environment we’ve created. It’s an inhumane environment,” he told the council. “We owe them these sorts of easy safety improvements.”

Marc Vukcevich, another CMABS board member, said he spoke to the city’s public works director a year ago asking officials to educate citizens on the new law.

“Have we been giving warnings at all the past year? Does Public Works have a plan to implement this with red curbs, with bollards, with bike racks or other things we can do?” he asked.

Costa Mesa resident Marc Vukcevich, a policy director for California nonprofit Streets for All, helped draft AB 413.

(Courtesy of Marc Vukcevich)

“The public is supportive of public safety and pedestrian safety. But they want the city to communicate about public safety and about initiatives like this.”

By day, Vukcevich is director of state policy for the nonprofit Streets for All, which sponsored AB 413. In fact, the Costa Mesan drafted the language for the bill introduced by Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose) in February 2023 and signed into law that October.

He said Costa Mesa’s haphazard implementation of the law is not unique, adding multiple cities have similarly established March 1 as the period at which they will begin enforcing the mandate.

“San Francisco has committed that they’re going to paint every curb, and I’ve seen information from Seal Beach come out on this policy,” Vukcevich said in an interview Thursday. “My biggest concern is, I think, in Costa Mesa the first time they mentioned this policy, after we’d sent them a letter, was maybe a week ago.”

Costa Mesa police spokeswoman Roxi Fyad confirmed Thursday officers had, in fact, issued AB 413-related citations since Jan. 1 but could not say how many. She stated any citations issued prior to the “grace period” ending March 1 will be dismissed.

City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison assured residents Tuesday that public works and police officials were working together to ensure ticketing does not precede education.

“We strongly believe in education before we implement new programs,” she said. “It’s important for everyone to be informed of the new rules.”