Finding a parking space in the Mission has always been a nightmare. But it’s never been as arduous an intellectual feat as it was for me on a recent Thursday night.
It was my first experience parking next to the newly restored side-running bike lanes. Three times, I spotted an empty space (a near-miracle on a Thursday evening), only to pull over and discover I wasn’t allowed to park there, after all.
That same night, I came across several other confused drivers. Some were unable to decipher the rules. Others parked illegally. So I decided to investigate on behalf of everyone who seeks to park on this major commercial corridor.
First, know that there are fewer spaces than in the past. The side-running bikeway has reduced parking and loading spaces on Valencia by a third, going from about 225 with the center-running bikeway to 146 now, according to Paul Stanis, manager of the SFMTA Valencia bikeway project.
Stanis offered drivers three suggestions:
- “Don’t park in a red zone.”
- “If there’s a big rectangle, that usually means you can park there.”
- “You have to pay attention to the signage that’s usually on the meter, or a sign up on the curb.”
Watch the color on the curb and on the ground
Curb zones are painted in different colors to indicate parking and loading rules.
- Red = no parking.
- White = passenger loading.
- Green = short-term parking.
- Yellow = commercial loading.
- Blue = accessible parking.
- No color = it might be fine to park here, but … read on.
While the color codes are consistent across the city, Valencia Street is unique because, on Valencia, the codes — usually painted on sidewalk curbs — can also be painted on the right edge of the parking space.
This means they are on the ground, almost beneath your car, and a couple feet away from the sidewalk.
Unfortunately for those looking for a spot, that means that even when you see an unpainted curb, you might not be able to park there.
There are some helpful patterns you can follow: Red zones are always painted on the sidewalk, across the bike lane from the parking space.
The other colors — white, green, yellow and blue — are typically painted along the right edge of the rectangular parking space. So, if another vehicle is parked behind the spot you are aiming for, you may not see the warning until after you’ve almost finished parking.
A white zone on Valencia Street, with its color code painted on the right edge of the parking space, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Meg Shutzer. 
A blue zone on Valencia Street, with its color code painted on the right edge of the parking space, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Meg Shutzer. 
A parking meter of a green zone on Valencia Street on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Meg Shutzer.
Hatched spaces are only available if you are driving a fire engine.
These triangle-striped areas, or buffers, are prevalent on Valencia, especially near intersections and fire hydrants. They also appear around driveways to give vehicles enough space to pull in and out.
Cars are often parked in them, but they should not be.
Don’t park in the hatched spaces. There will be a red curb to remind you, though it will be on the other side of the bike lane, on the sidewalk’s curb.
Some hatched spaces are so big, and so inviting, but you are likely to get a ticket or be towed.
Valencia’s dual-use zones make parking even more confusing.
On Valencia, when the clock strikes specific times, parking rules in the dual zones change. These stretches of Valencia have different restrictions depending on the time of day to satisfy merchants’ varying needs.
In these zones, drivers may need to do what I did: Get out of the vehicle, walk across the bikeway, and study the signs.
“The best advice I can give is to pay attention to the signage that’s on the meter or close to the meter,” Stanis said.
Each spot, even those with the same color curb, can have very different rules. For example, one space might allow up to three hours of parking before noon with no afternoon parking, while another permits four hours of parking throughout the day.
“We worked very closely, going door to door with over 100 businesses up and down the corridor,” said Stanis. “That kind of hybrid flexibility in a lot of the parking spaces up and down Valencia is something that we heard pretty clearly from merchants … we try to clarify it and simplify it as much as possible.”
Some merchants only want yellow commercial loading zones in the morning, then passenger loading for their customers in the afternoon, Stanis said. Others want commercial loading, then general metered parking. Prices and time ranges vary.
So check the curb, check the paint, read the signs and watch for bikes.
Good luck, parkers!
Don’t forget the Mission-Bartlett Garage at 21st St.
That’s $30 per 12 hours. You’re not comparing apples to apples.
Sure, but maybe we should be getting rid of the expectation that everyone should have easy-to-find free parking for their private vehicles
This article is written like the author has never driven a car in SF before. Most of these factors that allegedly complicate Valencia street in particular are normal rules applicable all over the city: the color-coded parking and loading rules are the same; the dual-use (loading during the day, parking at night); check the curb color and sign before you start parking. None of these have anything to do with Valencia Street and bike lanes.
Also, no mention of the reason they set up the bike lanes this way, which was well-documented in Mission Local, and designed only after the city VERY famously tried a design everyone hated, in an attempt to save more parking spots. No mention of how they finally after years of experimentation have a reasonably safe bike path, on this crucial and heavily-used route.
Basically, if I want this driver-oriented, culture-war BS, I can get it in the Chronicle or the Standard any day of the week.
Side note, what is this concept of a “hatched space” that you have to learn the rules for? It’s obvious that they hatch the areas that are not parking spots. These are not “spaces” of any kind. No one is ever allowed to park there, except emergency vehicles, which can park anywhere during an emergency, of course. This is another example of the author trying to make it seem confusing when it’s actually quite well marked.
The bike lanes should never have been on Valencia in the first place. SVN makes a lot more sense. Folsom St also endured a “road diet” some years ago and has bike lanes through much of the Mission with the downtown section now being torn up so that lanes can be installed there too (despite SFMTA’s wanting a bond or parcel tax to bail it out).
Nope,,,, Valencia has all the cafes, shops, even a bike shop or two. Why some of the first bike lanes in the city were put there in the first place. I do agree the parking is confusing and a simpler plan would have been just fine
SF got along fine before the bike lanes, even with fewer fatalities. Go figure.
“Basically, if I want this driver-oriented, culture-war BS, I can get it in the Chronicle or the Standard any day of the week”
Well don’t let the door hitcha, but we’re talking about it without your permission, thanks.
Square footage is a luxury. A car is a luxury. If you want to put a high-value item in a high value place, please be willing to invest the resources to do so with due regard for everyone else who is also attempting to utilize the space in a safe and respectful manner. You do not have a right to a parking spot, just as you do not have a right to use the road in any way that can risk your safety or the safety of others. Please try to be civil!
“A car is a luxury”
Tell us you never had a real job without telling us you never had a real job. Turns out, not having to have a car in this country is the luxury. As far as Valencia Street goes, sure, there’s no “right” for a parking spot. That said, squeezing ppl simply means they take their business elsewhere.
Exactly. When they screwed up parking in San Anselmo and people got confused and turned away, businesses suffered, and eventually the City Council got the message and reversed course. In SF you have to be a non-profit manager or know the Mayor to get anything basic like that done.
A car is transportation and the way you are able to buy something large and take it home, which get this, local businesses depend on. That’s NOT a luxury.
The anti-car goons are nuts. They take Waymos everywhere too -Yuppie hypocrisy.
JC, that is not correct. There is no point in having roads if you cannot leave you vehicle somewhere at your destination. That is why when roads are designed, extra lanes are created just for parking. There is nothing wrong with that, but it becomes a problem when the City decides to arbitrarily take that space and repurpose it.
Also bear in mind that Valencia is not just a commercial strip. People live there and, unlike the side streets, most residential buildings on Valencia do not have a garage or off-street parking.
Finally, a car is not a “luxury” for many people. It can be the only way they can get to work or school.
Make your destination the parking garage then. That’s what J C is saying.
This is a pretty incredible back-and-forth. It’s like you two have been talking past one another for years.
Why should paying customers have to pay more to appease bicycle groups wasting taxpayer money?
There is only one parking garage in the Mish and it could be blocks away from my destination. Not gonna happen.
That’s increasingly impossible as they remove more and more parking for multi-million dollar traffic ‘experiments’ on behalf of the ‘non-profit’ moron brigade that sucks up taxpayer dollars for no actual benefit whatsoever.
They should have just gone back to the old arrangement, with cars parked along the curb, and a bike lane between parked cars and the lane of traffic, with left-turn yield signals. The signals were already timed for 13mph traffic. As a cyclist, I’d just ride in the street, it was TOTALLY safe.
The current arrangement with snaking bike lanes between cars and curbs, weird left-turn yield signals that have most pedestrians just jay-walking, is way more unsafe. The lack of space in the bike lane is seriously dangerous for all the types of traffic that use it (fast bikes, slow bikes, fast scooters, slow scooters, big full-family extended bikes).
How about not parking at all, meaning arrive by bus or foot. It constantly amazes me when I see young, “able-bodied” people leave my apartment building, pacing nervously, checking their phone for their Uber/Lyft, when they could check a transit app for the next nearby bus or, Yahweh-forbid, actually walk to their destination. They could be on Valencia St. in 15 minutes, get some exercise by walking there and probably avoid the ozempic mania gripping this nation!
What an unpleasant and complicated mess.
I am just going to park where I feel like and accept that every now and then I might get a ticket. I am usually just there for a few minutes anyway so the risk of a ticket is small and worthwhile.
it’s actually not complicated, i really have no idea why the writer found it so confusing. yeah, you can’t park in the red. yeah, some spots are loading during the day but you can park at night. NBD
It’s confusing because it’s different than the rest of SF parking. It’s literally a 1-off situation created to appease whiny bicycle groups who will never be satisfied and will always complain. They don’t care if businesses are affected, they don’t care if seniors can’t shop, they don’t care if shops can’t get deliveries and stay afloat, they only care about wasting taxpayer money. The whole thing is a mess and pretending it’s not = you don’t live there and never did.
Pretending that locals are the ones driving cars in San Francisco = you’ve never even visited San Francisco.
Pretending locals don’t drive = you can move back to NYC anytime, tourist.
Have you considered the risk of a fire truck not being able to easily access a fire hydrant?
They break your car window and plow the hose through your car.
Oh my, how has this ever been addressed on the rest of SF streets that don’t have a needlessly confusing and silly bike lane musical chairs game?
A: Not a problem at all.
This is how you kill businesses, revenue and a city’s ability to pay for services. Progressives and bike coalition hates cars, so they do everything to “discourage” people from driving. And, guess what?? Customers will stop driving and shopping in your area, your businesses will shut down, etc. Enjoy your empty and desolate neighbourhood. What a bunch of progressive bozos!
Mission Local ran the numbers and determined the bike lanes did not negatively impact businesses on Valencia
That’s not a fact at all.
I bet they ran numbers and numbers were skewed to fit their agenda.
What a stupid and overly confusing mess for no benefit.
the benefit is that it is much safer for the hundreds of bikers that use the lane every day
“Hundreds” oooh, wow.
So cyclists are more important than drivers?
2% versus 70%?
Yes, the lives of cyclists and pedestrians are more important than the convenience of drivers. Safety and reducing deaths are the most important thing.
Lives aren’t saved by a bike lane. Wasting millions has only resulted in more killed on SF streets. Project Zero is a lie and only suckers fall for it.
I’m hoping for fewer cyclists – not more. You know: work towards eliminating bicycle injuries and deaths.
The article or the parking situation?
Obviously not the article. Cmon.
This mess is to the benefit of traffic engineers at SFMTA who find their employer accommodating of their urge to put fancy looking stuff on their resumes. So they can move on to San Jose or elsewhere, and “delight” the public with their eclectic creations there.
THIS. Futurism as a career, it’s hilarious bullshit.
“Danger, Will Robinson, Danger !”
Your opening photo is of green bike lane on West side of Valencia between 14th and 15th but you didn’t photograph the East side which has no bike lane at all from Four Barrels Coffee North to 14th and Valencia over which my dog and I watch confused cyclists and motorists interact and a few times they’ve collided and there are two schools in the next block and parents pedal with kids in jumpseats which shouldn’t be and the Mayor’s kids go to one of those schools and you’d think he could get them to finish the green paint on that Eastern portion of curbside lane from 4 Barrels to the corner.
Yes, I have a 311 complaint I made on this growing a beard and I went to an SFMTA Community Advisory Meeting with a roomful of people and charts and the like and when I asked the lady if she would get them to finish the paint job she laughed and literally wrote it on the paper table cloth next to stacks of pamphlets.
If they give me 5 gallons of green paint and a few orange cones I’ll do it for free.
go Niners !!
h.
The only thing MTA cares about is a profit, no matter how under-handed they have to be to get it.
I have seen the same vet on Valencia (near 18th) for more than 30 years. Now there is nowhere to park nearby, and lugging three carriers through the Mission is impossible. I recently tried to park in front of the vet’s to ask the receptionist to bring the animals in so that I could find parking. Within a few moments, a meter maid was there brandishing her book. Do you think that this ill-conceived bike lane is not going to hurt established businesses such as this?
So, when the venues on Valencia close, we will know why. Not a friendly neighborhood to visit. And you know we to blame for that.
This is why we can’t have nice things. If it takes an article to explain how to park, and if a person who has lived and parked in sf for 15+ yrs still doesn’t understand how to park after reading such an article, the rules are too confusing.
How about this? Cyclists, cycle where it’s safest for you to cycle. There I saved the city millions and millions of dollars.
Too common sense for YIMBY yuppies who want it all for free right now.