My name is Alex, I’m 33, and I live in San Francisco. Like anyone who’s tried to park a car in this city, I’ve learned that parking rules here are… complicated.
There are signs everywhere.
Street sweeping schedules.
Permit zones.
Meters that seem to operate on their own mysterious time system.
But last week I got a parking ticket that might be the most confusing one yet.
I parked my car directly in front of my apartment building, which is something I do fairly often when I’m unloading groceries or carrying things upstairs.
The building also happens to have a small garage entrance on the ground floor.
Normally there’s a section of the curb painted red next to the garage so people know not to block it.
Except the paint is almost completely faded.
It’s so worn down that from a few feet away it basically looks like a normal curb.
That night I parked just past the garage opening, making sure there was still space for a car to enter or exit if needed.
The next morning I walked outside and saw a bright orange envelope under my windshield wiper.
Parking ticket.
The violation?
“Parking too close to a driveway.”
At first I assumed I must have misjudged the distance somehow.
So I stepped back and looked at the car again.
There was clearly space between my car and the garage entrance.
More importantly… it was my own building’s garage.
And the car parked there belonged to me.
So technically I had parked near my own driveway.
I checked the curb more carefully and finally noticed what must have once been a red-painted section.
But the paint had faded so much that it barely existed anymore.
It looked like a ghost of a parking restriction.
The ticket, however, was very real.
$98.
I decided to contest it online and included photos showing how faded the curb paint was.
I also explained that the garage belonged to the building where I lived and that I hadn’t blocked the entrance.
A few days later I got the response.
Ticket upheld.
According to the city, the restriction still applies even if the curb paint is difficult to see.
Which means apparently I’m expected to recognize invisible parking boundaries based on what the curb might have looked like years ago.
At this point I’m considering two possible solutions.
Option one: never park anywhere near that curb again.
Option two: bring a small paintbrush outside one weekend and politely restore the red line myself.
Because if the city is going to enforce a parking rule based on historic curb paint, the least they could do is make sure the curb still remembers what color it used to be.
Until then, I guess I’ve learned an important lesson about parking in San Francisco.
Even your own driveway might not be safe.
