San Francisco officials say illegal no parking zones painted in Richmond District
San Francisco city officials say an unknown person illegally painted red "no parking" zones along an area of Balboa Street in the Richmond District.
A new California law makes it illegal to park a car within 20 feet of any intersection, whether it's marked or not. The red paint found on curbs in the neighborhood seems to emphasize that point, but the SFMTA says they don't know who put it there
"I parked all the way over there just because of those red lines," said Erick Rodriguez.
Erick Rodriguez has been working at a construction site near the intersection of Balboa and 18th Ave. for the last few weeks.
He said parking has always been a little tricky to find in the morning, but this week things got even more complicated.
"That whole block over there was painted red, and then we had to wait to look for parking and we couldn't even start to work early. We started late just because we couldn't find parking," said Rodriguez.
SFMTA officials said the red zones were painted illegally near intersections off Balboa this week.
"It makes me very upset, because I have to drive around, go around the block for 15 minutes to look for parking today. So I didn't need to do that if we had more parking spots regarding it," said Victor Law, who lives in the neighborhood.
The new state daylighting law that recently went into effect has made it illegal for cars to park within 20 feet of any intersection.
The city said it is working on painting red zones at intersections in school zones, but says many other intersections in the city won't have any markings or signage despite it still being illegal to park near them.
Whoever painted these illegal red zones did so in the correct areas of the intersections, but also painted the zones beyond the regulated 20-foot distance.
The SFMTA told CBS News Bay Area the incident has stretched their resources thin and caused confusion among residents. But some think maybe whoever did this was just trying to help save people from getting a ticket.
"I think what they're doing is good. I think they're trying to help people. If there isn't money in the budget, this person said, 'Hey, I'm going to go out, help the city, help the citizens and do it on my own.' I think you can't see that person as anything except an angel," said Brian Kehoe, who was parked nearby.
After being alerted to the illegal red zones, SFMTA crews came out to the area and fixed the zones by painting over them to the correct 20-foot length.
Rodriguez said he was happy the problem has been addressed, but he's confused by the whole thing. And he's still not a fan of the new daylighting law.
"I personally don't like it. Especially living in the city. It's really hard to find parking, so I feel like...I don't know. I don't like it," said Rodriguez.