Pacific Beach is the wrong place not to use a crosswalk.

The neighborhood accounted for nearly one in five jaywalking tickets written by San Diego police since January 2011, according to data obtained by Data Watch under the California Public Records Act.

A single street, Garnet Avenue, made up the bulk of citations issued in the area. A police department spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on the city’s approach to jaywalking enforcement, or the preponderance of tickets written along the popular bar-hopping drag.

» Interactive map: Where tickets were written


A host of boozy intersections in North Park and the Gaslamp Quarter — particularly along 30th Street and 5th Avenue — accounted for a similarly high share of the more than 4,200 tickets handed to pedestrians over the past five years.

Records show the average ticket recipient in those areas was a little younger than those found in the rest of the city, where the typical accused jaywalker was a white male, just north of 35 years old.

Tickets written in Pacific Beach and North Park also tended to be issued later in the day, and later in the week, than those written downtown. Citywide, the most common time to receive a ticket was 11 p.m. on a Thursday. Fifth Avenue, Kettner Boulevard, West Broadway and C and B streets were the most ticketed roadways downtown.


Black pedestrians made up a disproportionately high share of citywide citation recipients, picking up 16 percent of tickets despite representing 7 percent of the city’s population.

Whites accounted for slightly more than their fair share of tickets, while Asians and Hispanics received fewer tickets than their share of the population would suggest.

Most of those ticketed were dinged for failing to use a crosswalk or jumping into a crosswalk too late. Pedestrians are not allowed to start crossing a roadway if a traffic signal instructs them to wait, even if there’s plenty of time remaining on “the countdown.”

More than 100 of the pedestrians ticketed for jaywalking also received citations for a range of alleged offenses, including obstructing traffic, resisting arrest, possessing marijuana and violating open container laws.


Nearly three dozen individuals were cited more than once since 2011. Two received separate citations in a 15-minute period, each within two blocks of where they were first ticketed.

It’s not clear how much courts collected in fines associated with such offenses. A spokeswoman said the San Diego County Superior Court does not keep data on cash collected from jaywalking defendants, who face a maximum fine of around $200.

Attorney Elizabeth Aronson said the base fine for jaywalking actually starts at $20, but rises rapidly as state and local authorities tack on “penalty assessments” meant to fund municipal programs.

Aronson, a longtime traffic court lawyer, is often able to get those fines suspended, though she said some courts aren’t as lenient as they used to be.


The DMV is not supposed to find out about non-traffic infractions like jaywalking, but Aronson said that hasn’t stopped court debt collectors from contacting motor vehicle officials. That means accused jaywalkers who can’t afford to pay their fine could eventually see their driver’s license suspended, an outcome she said can prove especially devastating to the city’s working poor.

Besides, Aronson said, it’s not at all clear that ticketing jaywalkers does much to encourage pedestrian safety.

“Frankly, I’ve never seen it change the behavior of a mass of people,” she added.

City auditors in September offered similarly mixed reviews of police jaywalking enforcement efforts, which they said weren’t always targeted in the places where they were most needed.


“SDPD does not generally use data to determine where to conduct targeted pedestrian safety enforcement operations and what traffic violations to focus on during those enforcements,” the audit said. “As a result, SDPD’s targeted pedestrian safety enforcement operations may not be directed towards the locations at which additional enforcement is most needed and for the violations that have caused pedestrian collisions in those locations.”

Auditors counted 270 people who had died on San Diego streets over the past 15 years. They said 66 pedestrians lost their lives over a three-year period between 2013 and 2015 — the deadliest stretch since 2001, according to the auditors’ report.

City Council members last year adopted a plan to eliminate all pedestrian-related traffic deaths in the city by 2025. That same year, police conducted two dozen targeted enforcement efforts for bicycle and pedestrian safety.


Jaywalking tickets are actually down from their peak in 2012. That year, there were 1,065 tickets citywide. Last year, there were 515.

Jaywalking rules

Under California law, pedestrians can generally cross anywhere along a street without being guilty of jaywalking, with a few notable exceptions: