Four hours after Riley Walz launched an app that tracked parking enforcement in the city, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency effectively killed it, Walz said.
“In rare lightning speed, the SF government changed their site within hours of this site going live. I can’t get data from it anymore,” the app now reads.
On Tuesday, the 23-year-old data engineer launched “Find My Parking Cops,” a site that tracked — in near real-time — parking citations being issued across San Francisco and the officers writing them.
The name and look of the app intentionally mimics “Find My Friends,” and shows the initials of every officer on duty and their whereabouts, based on the last citation they made.
“We made sure that all access to citation data was via authorized routes,” an SFMTA spokesperson said in a statement. “When our staff’s safety, and personal information of people who have received parking citations, is at risk, we must act on that swiftly.”
The website, which went big online earlier in the day, worked by querying the SFMTA’s citation payment website. Anyone can technically search for a citation number to pull up a copy of the citation including information about what vehicle was cited, where, and why. This just did it for every citation across the city, all at once.
Walz got the idea when he was playing around with the payment site after his roommate got a parking ticket.
“I actually don’t have a car,” he said. “But my friends do, and I know that parking tickets are kind of notorious in this city.”
Using his roommate’s citation number, Walz identified the numbers of subsequent tickets, as they all follow the same pattern.
Walz also created a leaderboard that tallies the total value of parking tickets issued by each officer. As of Tuesday afternoon, at least three officers had issued more than $15,000 worth of tickets in just over a day. (The leaderboard resets every Monday at midnight.)
The map allowed users to follow each officer’s “journey” through the city. Walz said he found that some officers stay put in the same location: One spent a day just issuing tickets to buses at the same address, outside the Hyatt Hotel.
“I’m not sure how useful it is,” said Walz, who added that he doubts people will use it to choose where to park. “But I’m curious how people will actually use it.”
Last year, Walz launched “bopspotter,” a tool that connected to a microphone in an undisclosed location on Mission Street and detected any songs playing in the street. It too went viral at the time.
His other creative projects also include “Papers,” a site that displays and archives front pages of major newspapers every day, and “Routeshuffle,” a tool that randomly generates running, walking and cycling routes.
The “Find My Parking Cops” site had more clicks than documented parking tickets in its first day — more than 50,000 views.
The single best way to avoid parking tickets is to park legally 👍🏼 I wouldn’t want my whereabouts blasted all over the place after giving an angry driver a ticket. These city workers are doing their job to reduce illegal parking and encourage safe driving. We should be aware that this can very much impact their safety.
Actually SF has a complaint-based system for ticketing people parked entirely in their own driveways, not blocking sidewalks even 1 inch. Any Karen can anonymously complain about a single vehicle parked in a single driveway even if every driveway on the street has a car in it, and that single vehicle will get a single expensive ticket – and the system has been frequently abused. So exposing the quirks of the “public” legal system and the way it’s actually working vs. how it’s “supposed to” work, that’s very useful for people who want to know and improve where SF falls short. It’s also interesting to see the patterns of individual officers frequenting their fiefdoms and what they choose to ticket vs. ignore. Parking officers aren’t being “doxxed” by having their names attached to their work because that’s already public information for anyone who looks for it. Public records should be public. The reason they likely should have sidelined this app was because it also exposes private individuals’ habits and locations via their license info. Then again, the City has no problem abusing that for its “Flock” camera system and shuffling all that data into a private database, despite it being purportedly public also.
@Eh – I doubt any “not blocking sidewalks even 1 inch” claim, because if that were true, there would be no complaints and there would certainly be no tickets. Given the widespread entitlement of motorists parking on the sidewalk and the absurd lore about how much of that is okay. (#ProTip: None. None of it is okay.)
Making the process complaint-driven is a disaster. People parking illegally and sociopathically is endemic, because the City should be out there proactively ticketing and towing rather than leaving it to happenstance. Plus, of course, it creates a dynamic where people like you will haul out circa 2017 sexist “Karen” slurs against people with legitimate complaints.
The announcement on blocked sidewalks and the policy behind it is that every car on the block that is blocking the sidewalk will be cited. Usually the unclear aspect is how much sidewalk in front of a building can be blocked before it becomes ticket-able. The usual definition is 4 feet (I believe) of sidewalk must be clear.
@Sotaro – Absolutely not, the California Vehicle Code is very clear that absolutely none of the sidewalk may be parked on. “4 feet” or “3 squares” or anything else along those lines is nothing but folklore.
Surely the criterion should be whether something like a wheelchair can safely and successfully navigate the blockage?
If so then it is not reasonable to report such a vehicle even if technically it is in breach of the rule.
The CA vehicle code doesn’t apply for SFMTA citations Jym. You’re over your heels again.
I’m glad to hear parking officers are doing their jobs.
The city’s deficit has to be addressed somehow. If we don’t give out tickets, how are we going to be able to pay off the lavish parties that London Breed’s friends already staged with our money?
It’s a racket and a scam. The entire business of cleaning the streets is simply a pretext for being able to issue a lot of tickets in a short space of time. It is legalized extortion.
MTA is removing large amounts of parking all over the city and then generating revenue from drivers when they can’t find anywhere to park. If that’s not a scam, I don’t know what you’d call it.
This is reminiscent of the “How am I driving?” signage on the back of commercial vehicles, with an accompanying phone number, so EVERYBODY gets to play deputy dog. I’m all for democratic transparency, if we can do it without persecuting workers.
Who is being persecuted? A: not actually happening.
@Eh – SFMTA workers have been threatened for issuing tickets and other things. Look for a _Chronicle_ story from December 28 mentioning and linking to some of these incidents, it’s under a particularly idiotic “War On Cars” headline.
(All “War On Cars” headlines are idiotic, but this one is about people being attacked and threatened by motorists.)
Great data. The safety issue could be addressed by a time delay. Plan this Tuesday based on last Tuesday’s trends? Which festival generated the most unintentional revenue? Are parking tickets impacting safety (new daylights requirements)?
“RIP
In rare lightning speed, the SF government changed their site within hours of this site going live. I can’t get data from it anymore.”
Here’s a research need: how much of that money actually pays for things that benefit the public? I’ll wager most of it goes to overpaid meter cops and private companies that sell authoritarian tech at exorbitant prices. Parking meters in Golden Gate Park?
All of this is regressive taxation and total corruption…! Where is the pushback? San Anselmo just showed how these fascists can be stopped by an informed populace!
I don’t understand why his age is any more relevant than his race or gender.
Brilliant app. Way to go kid! Chalk one up for the little guys. This town is not car-friendly. Parking fines and towing fees in SF are outrageous.
Nope, SF can’t handle its citizens having direct access to information like that.
Someone might expose something! Can’t have that.
It’s not appropriate for a mobile app to directly access the city’s data feed. They have neither the money nor the resources to handle the kind of load they’ve been exposed to. He needs to set up his own server to get the data at a sustainable rate from the city and provide the data feed to the thousands of users he has.
There is no safety issue. Just safety of their ticket dollars making it in the homeless industrial complex coffers
“We made sure that all access to citation data was via authorized routes,” an SFMTA spokesperson said in a statement. “When our staff’s safety, and personal information of people who have received parking citations, is at risk, we must act on that swiftly.”
This is bureaucracy-speak for “we don’t like it” or circling the wagons, as neither their staff’s safety nor the personal information of people who have received parking citations are at risk here.
Actually, it’s “buraucracy-speak” for “our system isn’t designed for a crude mobile app that’s hitting it 50,000 times per day.”
SFMTA’s fiscal irresponsibility shouldn’t come at the expense of its citizens! These bogus tickets are issued for one purpose and one purpose only: to generate revenue for SFMTA. They even have a fricking quota for how many tickets they have to issue.
In 2024, SFMTA generated over $126 million in ticket and fine revenue. It is estimated that the new speed cameras could generate up to $18 million in citations each year.
Don’t be fooled. These tickets have nothing to do with safety! It’s all about revenue! Remember that on your next elections, when they try to pass yet another bond or parcel tax to subsidize SFMTA’s union employees with pension funds and hefty benefits, who will harass and fine hardworking people of SF!
SFMTA’s fiscal irresponsibility shouldn’t come at the expense of its citizens! These bogus tickets are issued for one purpose and one purpose only: to generate revenue for SFMTA. They even have a fricking quota for how many tickets they have to issue.
In 2024, SFMTA generated over $126 million in ticket and fine revenue. It is estimated that the new speed cameras could generate up to $18 million in citations each year.
Don’t be fooled. These tickets have nothing to do with safety! Remember that on your next elections, when they try to pass yet another bond or parcel tax to subsidize SFMTA’s union employees with pension funds and hefty benefits whos main role is to fine hardworking citizens of SF!
As a family bike commuter and pedestrian I am happy they are enforcing the laws for the probative illegal parking and dangerous driving.
It’s parking citations only, as a revenue generator to the tune of $100M+ annually. It’s not for moving violations or dangerous driving, nor as a flex for municipal concern on the part of SFGov or SFMTA/Muni for pedestrian or cyclist safety.
It’s also punitively extortionate; our soon to be $105 street cleaning citations, $108 for exceeding residential overtime and $107 for an expired meter are double or even triple what some of those citations cost in Manhattan of all places.
They aren’t doing anything about these reckless kids on motorbikes doing wheelies down the street, huge gangs of guys on Harleys, blowing off stop signs, one Wheels, scooters, endless ways that people are completely disavowing the laws and endangering people. And yet I get a $90 to $110 ticket for trying to keep my car on the right side of the street every other night or every 2 hours while I’m trying to go to work and scrape by. Meanwhile kids doing wheelies right by me with no license plate. No registration, no insurance, nothing. Can’t go after them though, right? Why? Because it’s too hard?
Instead of war on cars and organized extortion, how about enforcing the law against bikers zooming through stops, red-lights, and pavements?
Uh no, they actually don’t enforce traffic laws. “Illegal parking” by which you mean people whose meter runs down while they’re in a meeting?
Pretending they’re heroes because you ride a bicycle is propeller hat talk.
@K – Bicyclists generally wear propeller hats, they’ve got the wrong aerodynamics.
No they don’t enforce driving dangerously. They only write tickets for expired meters and the like. Your bicycle is not benefiting from that and nor is your walk. #debunked
Something to consider:
Parking citations can be issued for daylighting violations, sidewalk obstruction, or bike lane obstruction.
All of which affect pedestrians and cyclists directly.
Jesus h. Christ, Kelly !!
Can I say that on this chat board ?
This kid is an absolute genius and Greg Wagner should hire him instantly to write the Algorithms for the new Inspector General post.
I used to manage an apartment complex above UC Medical called Kirkham Heights and owned by an old Chinese RE mogul named t.m. Chang and he had you write a report at the end of each day about what you did that day.
He had many employees and he read every comment.
Genius
This guy’s Algorithms could do the same thing.
This Walz kid could even be that Inspector General.
Can you imagine an Algorithm following this guy around all day …
I met an actual DBI Building Inspector yesterday.
Big bright shiny badge and all.
I’ve been lobbying Rachel Gordon to set me up with a face to face for a year and there he was.
“OK, show me … ”
I took him around and showed him the cracks between the City Sidewalk and the Ben Wolpin concrete stairs where rats live and junkies stuff used needles and sanitary supplies.
I asked him if he would write a Citation to make the owner tuck point the thing which would make me and Skippy’s job easier and he had a whole official clipboard trimmed with cop level trim but he made no move at it.
“I’ll see if I can talk to this other guy who is the one who would handle it.”
Yeah, my boy with the shiny badge ducked authority.
I told him I wanted to see a copy of the citation he wrote to AJ Enterprises (Ben Wolpin, principal) and would it help if I could get Carla Short to tell him to send me one and he just kinda shrugged when I asked if it was true that they ignored her (she’s DPW Boss) and that got another shrug and I asked if it helped if I got Rachel Gordan to ask him and that got a big smile and nod and we talked about her work as a writer and he’s too young to recall when she was the best reporter on the Chronicle for like 20 years.
So, let me dig up that 311 number
Someone link this to Greg Wagner please.
go Niners !!
Worst 3-0 start in Niner History but I’ll take it.
h.
@h. brown – Taking data and pumping it into map software isn’t genius, it’s plumbing. Certainly it was exciting when it was new (the 2010 NextBus webapp, for example), but nowadays, not so much.
I do this kind of plumbing for a living, and when we work with an agency we do the work and hammer out specifics to honor personal privacy. Fail to respect that, and you might as well be working for Palantir to help ICE locate people to kidnap.
What “personal privacy” or information is being dishonored here? The originator isn’t working with any agency, and owes SFMTA nothing. Names aren’t being released and PCO’s aren’t out kidnapping anything other than $120M each year – via punitively costly citations.