San Francisco officials issued nearly 1.2 million parking tickets this year, approaching $119 million in fines for blocking street cleaners, letting the meter run out, and a bevy of other violations.
By Dec. 13 — the most recent data available when The Standard ran its analysis — the Municipal Transportation Agency had issued more citations than in any year since before the pandemic.
With parking control officers tucking more dreaded citation slips under windshield wipers, The Standard dove into the city’s data to find the most troublesome locations to park in 2024 — and maybe help you avoid risk in the new year.
Topping the list is 50 Drumm St., a downtown address that was the site of more than 1,860 parking citations in 2024. The majority of drivers who got dinged at this location next to the Hyatt Regency hotel and a bustling taxi stand were blocking the bus zone. In all, those infractions cost scofflaw parkers north of $500,000.
Taking second place is 555 Terry A. Francois Boulevard, a familiar foe to those who follow the city’s riskiest parking locations.
A stone’s throw from both the Chase Center and Oracle Park, the public lot is next to the city’s special-event parking zone, where meter prices can spike to $11 per hour, even on weekends. When The Standard investigated the location in 2022, it found that the lot offered a dangerous temptation for game attendees: parking for 50 cents an hour, but with a 90-minute limit. Optimism and not reading the fine print translated into nearly 1,800 citations.
San Francisco’s third-riskiest parking spot, so far as The Standard can tell, is not a legitimate parking spot at all. Instead, 1300 Embarcadero North is a strip of bike lane that drivers apparently love to block — possibly to drop off passengers headed to Pier 33, home of the popular Alcatraz cruise dock. SFMTA officers issued nearly 940 tickets there, 93% of them for blocking the bike lane.
Fourth on the list, though almost certainly No. 1 for pairing sweet-treat bliss with parking-ticket disappointment, is 684 San Jose Ave. Right in front of Mitchell’s Ice Cream in Noe Valley is a 10-minute parking zone. Apparently, many customers are overly optimistic about how long it takes to scarf down an ice cream, because SFMTA issued nearly 890 citations at that address.
Continuing a long-running trend, street-cleaning violations were the top reason for parking tickets in San Francisco, encompassing 43% of citations in 2024. That was followed by parking meter violations (19%), parking without a residential permit (8%), and blocking a yellow commercial loading zone (4%).
Parking citations proved a divisive issue. Aiming to cut back on widespread sidewalk blocking and other chronic issues, SFMTA leaders vowed to crack down on safety-related violations. While street safety advocates celebrated the move, it drew criticism from many drivers and even the city’s own parking control officers.
With officials set to roll out daylighting — prohibiting parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk to increase visibility of pedestrians — 2025 is on its way to being another banner year for tickets in the city. The initiative is set to eliminate nearly 14,000 parking spots — meaning that as of March 1, there will be 14,000 new places where drivers can get a ticket.