Regular community meetings at San Francisco’s Bayview Police Station are usually sparsely attended. But on a recent Tuesday, all the seats were taken and there was little room to stand.
The big draw? The opportunity to confront two representatives from San Francisco’s parking enforcement division over the agency’s recent crackdown on vehicles encroaching on the neighborhood’s sidewalk.
Over the past month, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has gone on a ticketing blitz, according to video footage and over a dozen Bayview-Hunters Point residents who spoke with Mission Local.
Up to five parking enforcement vehicles at a time have been filmed rolling down the residential streets of the southeastern neighborhood sometimes several times a day, issuing tickets to cars parked in driveways and sticking out onto the sidewalk.
Seen trailing closely behind the phalanx of parking enforcement vehicles is a San Francisco police cruiser.
“Right now, it’s starting to feel more like harassment,” said one Bayview resident to SFMTA officers Shanika Bell and Trevor Adams at the Thursday meeting, shouting over the dozens of residents crowded into the small community meeting room.
“If I see seven to eight vehicles coming down my street, followed by police cars, it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to work with us,” he added, to cheers and nods of affirmation from the crowd.
“It does feel like an attack,” chimed in another woman. “There’s a lot of PTSD in this area because of the police. We weren’t growing up terrified of meter maids.”
Bayview Station Captain Bernadette Robinson said parking enforcement is up following longstanding complaints of rampant parking violations that disrupt the flow of traffic and sidewalk access. In Bayview, double-parked cars or vehicles blocking the sidewalk are a common sight — though it’s certainly not the only neighborhood in the city with repeat parking infractions.
A history of altercations with parking enforcement officers over tickets in the neighborhood, said Robinson, led to a lack of enforcement over the past several years. SFMTA’s parking ticket data from 2025 shows that the neighborhood had one of the lowest rates of parking tickets per resident compared to the rest of the city, though most tickets were issued for sidewalk parking violations.
The SFMTA, said Robinson, refused to increase enforcement in the neighborhood without the protection of the police department. But the partnership between the agency and the department has raised some eyebrows in a neighborhood with a long history of police scrutiny and brutality.
Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the neighborhood, said he has received a torrent of complaints from his constituents. He said that he does not have jurisdiction over either the SFMTA nor the police department.
“I don’t like the fact that the MTA is cracking down on a community where a lot of people have to drive, but that is something that is beyond our control,” said Walton. As for the involvement of the police department in doling out tickets, he said, “I should hope officers have other things they can do to keep the community safe.”
Residents who spoke to Mission Local said they have not yet noticed police officers interacting with anyone who receives a ticket, but felt that their presence has intimidated neighbors.
“As of three weeks ago I’m seeing the cops following them probably every other day,” said Roberto Mejia, a Bayview resident. “What’s been most concerning is the intensity and frequency of enforcement. It feels like our neighborhood is being heavily targeted.”
Mejia, who has an 18-month old child, often parks in his short driveway and, like many other neighbors on his block, his car slightly sticks out onto the sidewalk. It’s not enough to block the walkway, he said, but it’s noticeable.
A hallmark of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration has been solutions to seemingly small problems — including allowing residents to park in their driveways, provided they don’t encroach onto the sidewalk. Prior to legislation passed by the planning commission last year, San Francisco residents were technically not allowed to park without obscuring the car in their own driveway — though many residents across the city have done so for years.
Some Bayview residents who spoke with Mission Local say they have parked in the same spot in their driveway for over a decade, perhaps sticking out a bit into the sidewalk, but haven’t received tickets until this month.
“If I’m paying property taxes, I should be able to park in my driveway,” said one resident at the Bayview community meeting, who said she was fined for their car inching into the sidewalk. Despite the recent change to driveway-parking rules, SFMTA parking officer Trevor Adams said residents should perhaps refrain from parking in their driveway at all to avoid penalties.
“I was raised to think of a driveway as just that, an easement,” said Adams, making a hand motion to demonstrate a car pulling out of a driveway and into a garage. Adams, who said he grew up in the Fillmore, where he was told he could not park a car in the driveway, suggested residents simply clean out their garage.
For Leyla Akincilar, who often goes on walks with her three-year-old child in a stroller, a blocked sidewalk can pose a dangerous conundrum. Frequently, she said, she’s had to choose whether to walk into the street to get around a parked car or head back in the other direction.
“Cars also drive recklessly in this neighborhood,” she said. “I hated having to walk into the street. Someone is going to get seriously injured or killed.”
Akincilar, who lives on a quiet Bayview cul-de-sac, said her neighbors, who only parked in their driveways temporarily, were shocked to receive a ticket. At the same time, drivers who notoriously double and even triple-park on Third Street, she said, have not been ticketed.
“It’s arbitrary at best,” she said, “and selectively ignores repeat offenders at worst.”
Two weeks prior to the enforcement operation, the SFMTA tucked flyers into the windshields of parked cars in the neighborhood, warning neighbors of what was to come.
Parking is an issue in the area. Residents say they regularly circle their block multiple times a day to find parking, and many homes have multiple cars. Some have even taken to trying to save parking spots with traffic cones.
Some residents believe the solution may lie in implementing 90-degree parking in the neighborhood — a move Supervisor Alan Wong has attempted to bring to the Sunset to increase available parking.
Toni Hines, who lives on La Salle Avenue in Bayview, said residents have unofficially parked at a 90-degree angle for over 50 years, but only recently began receiving tickets for this. At the community meeting, Hines delivered a page-long petition asking that the SFMTA allow for perpendicular parking.
Jennifer Devine, who signed the petition, said her two vehicles have been ticketed five times in the past month. “As a teacher in the public schools getting $108 ticket every few days is untenable,” said Devine. “It seems grossly unfair.”