2020-2026: Emeryville Police Make Biking More Dangerous By Choosing Drivers Over Bikers

EPD Refuses to Ticket Bike Lane Blockers

Likelihood of Getting a Ticket Keeps Dropping in Emeryville

Bicycling Twice As Dangerous in Emeryville As Before

The City of Emeryville Police Department is forgiving motorists who park and block bike lanes in 2026 at twice the rate as they did in 2020 internal documents show, a public policy consequence that counters general pro-bike safety claims from the City.  Documents obtained through public records requests reveal a growing police tolerance at EPD for vehicles that illegally block bike lanes and put bicyclists in danger in Emeryville, the Tattler has found.

Illegal Bike Lane Blockage on Hollis Street
Putting up traffic cones doesn't make it OK.
Parking on sidewalk is also illegal.
EPD received a complaint but refused to
ticket this vehicle after a biker was nearly hit,
swerving around this blockage.

The documents show only one citation was issued by EPD for 54 civilian calls about lane blocking for the seven month period ending on February 20th, versus in 2020 when one citation resulted from 27 calls over seven months ending on September 30th of that year.  These numbers show motorists looking for parking spots in Emeryville are only half as likely to get a ticket for blocking a bike lane in 2026 as they were in 2020. 

This sort of condoning of bike lane blocking has real world consequences. Bike safety groups and insurance actuaries show how bikers, crossing the solid white line and swerving out into a travel lane from a bike lane to avoid a parked vehicle to be the most dangerous legal thing a bicyclist can do.  As drivers become distracted by increasing numbers of electronic devises in the car, parked car lane swerving by bicyclists becomes even more dangerous.  According to the Nationwide Insurance Company, surveys conducted in 2024 and 2025 revealed a sharp increase in phone-related distractions. For example, 47% of drivers admitted to texting while driving, a 31% increase from three years prior.  

Many drivers in Emeryville have learned police don't ticket cars for bike lane parking.  Scientific research generally indicates that the certainty of being caught is a powerful deterrent to crime.  So while Emeryville has largely given up enforcement, many other urban areas are adopting new technologies to combat the issue as provided for by a recent California law (AB 361) that allows cities like Sacramento and San Francisco to use forward-facing cameras on parking enforcement vehicles or buses to automatically cite vehicles illegally parked in bike lanes.  Emeryville has balked at using the new law.

In 2024 when he was running for City Council,
Matthew Solomon told us he 
supported bicycling in Emeryville.  Now,
that he's in office, he doesn't care as much.

Even as the City of Emeryville has been retrenching on the enforcement of bike lane law over the last six years, the State of California has risen to the public safety challenge, raising fines considerably.  As such, Emeryville leaves quite a bit of potential revenue for the cash strapped city on the table.  The California Vehicle Code 21211 that prohibits lane blocking, allows for fines of $268 for each violation ($238 plus $30 added as a ‘process fee’).  This represents a significant increase over 2020 when the fine was only $59.  Monies received is split between municipalities and the State.

Vice Mayor Matthew Solomon, who ran for City Council in 2024 on a conspicuous bike safety platform did not respond to our queries about this story as well as EPD who also refused comment.

The 2020 Tattler story on this subject is HERE.

Reversal: EPD Now Says It's Illegal to Park in Bike Lanes

Police Department Reverses Earlier Decision Legalizing Bike Lane Blocking

While Chief is Away on Medical Leave, Second in Command Announces it's Now Illegal To Park in Bike Lanes

A delivery truck blocking a bike lane on Horton Street in Emeryville last week received a ticket by the Emeryville police.  It’s a normal, everyday thing in cities across the Bay Area, but in Emeryville, it represents a great leap forward in bicycle safety.

Until April 14th, trucks blocking bike lanes didn’t get ticketed because it was a perfectly legal thing according to Emeryville’s Chief of Police Jeffery Jennings and his interpretation of California’s Vehicle Code.  But on that date, an attorney hired by the City of Emeryville to examine Chief Jennings’s claim, determined that, like other cities, Emeryville should consider vehicles blocking bike lanes as illegal.

April 27th, after the new April 14th EPD ruling,
this truck was blocking a bike lane on Horton Street.

A City hired 'special counsel', Christie Crowl, delivered her finding about the California Vehicle Code at an April 14th Transportation Committee meeting during a bike lane discussion item brought by Mayor John Bauters.  Emeryville’s police captain, second in command, Oliver Collins, who attended the meeting later told the Tattler the police department would take up Ms Crowl’s interpretation of the vehicle code, reversing the Chief's ruling, making Emeryville no longer an outlier among Bay Area cities.  Chief Jennings has been out for some weeks on medical leave and did not attend the Transportation Committee meeting.

...moments later, the truck received a parking
ticket for "blocking a bike lane" according to this
EPD employee issuing the citation.

The City of Emeryville and its police department has been flustered at the Tattler’s airing of Chief Jennings’s unique, some might say embarrassing reading of state law over the past months.  With the Chief out on long term leave, acting chief, Mr Collins wasted no time instructing his troops that the department would henceforth follow the ruling made by Ms Crowl, resulting in the ticketing of the truck on Horton Street for bike lane blocking.  The Police Department's actions hint that it wants to move past the imbroglio brought by Chief Jennings as quickly as possible.  The attorney’s opinion was made on April 14th and tickets for infraction were already being written by April 27th.
 

 Chief Jennings could not be reached for comment about this reversal of his edict.

The new ruling will have the effect of protecting bicyclists (when implemented) and it also brings Emeryville’s Municipal Code into compliance with the State's Vehicle Code which had previously been in conflict.  Emeryville’s code (4-9.12) makes it illegal to block bike lanes but the Chief said Emeryville’s law cannot supersede Sacramento law and so it was considered null and void.  Emeryville’s code, which reads, “It shall be unlawful for the operator of any train, truck, or other vehicle to stop or park in such a manner as to block or impede the flow of traffic” included bicycle traffic in the law before Chief Jennings's ruling.  

Emeryville Police Chief Jeff Jennings
Away on long term medical leave, 
Emeryville has moved on past him.

Mr Jennings announced that it's OK for vehicles to block bike lanes (for up to 72 hours) in a letter to the City last November as a result of frustration over mounting calls from angry bicyclists.  The Chief subsequently directed his employees not to ticket vehicles parked in bike lanes.  Publicly, he announced that any vehicles that blocked bike lanes but also parked in red curb zones or with 'no parking' signs would get tickets from his department.

The Tattler challenged the Chief’s red zone exception with a series of calls to the department over trucks parked in red zones  (that also were blocking bike lanes).  What we found was that police would not arrive if the dispatcher was informed that a red zone blocking truck was also blocking a bike lane.  We documented six such cases, waiting for the police for at least 20 minutes and up to one hour.  In no case did police ever arrive, let alone ticket the truck for the red zone violation.

Christie Crowl was hired by the City as special counsel expressly to rule on this bike lane issue for presentation to the  April 14th Transportation Committee meeting.  Ms Crowl served as Emeryville’s interim deputy city attorney before new City Attorney John Kennedy was hired March 2nd.  Ms Crowl is a partner at Jarvis Fay and Gibson, an Oakland based law firm specializing in government law.

It remains to be seen after Chief Jennings returns to his job if he will overturn his employee Captain Collins’s new ruling supporting bicyclists and safe bike lane travel.  For the record, Mr Collins told the Tattler he is confident the department will not go back to the days of legal bike lane blocking.  

The Law Before April 14th:
Each one of the following trucks were blocking 
red zones and blocking bike lanes.  The police were 
called but they never showed up.  No show means no tickets means it's
defacto legal.  The Chief said vehicles red zone blocking would mean tickets,
regardless of bike lanes.  These photos are part of the Tattler documentation that he
didn't mean what he said.  Demonstrably, it's OK, under Chief Jennings's (former) ruling, to block red zones as long as you're also blocking a bike lane.  He isn't fond of bicycling.

27 Calls to Police, One Vehicle Ticketed: Why Our Bike Lanes Are Blocked

Blocked Bike Lanes:

Emeryville Doesn't Care About Bike Safety

A Combination of Lax Enforcement and Low Fines is a Recipe For Injured/Killed Bicyclists

News Analysis

Amid a growing prevalence of bike lane blockages and in response to a Tattler public records request, the Emeryville Police Department recently released citizen complaint driven data on vehicles illegally blocking the city’s bike lanes and the Department’s enforcement management to address the problem.  The numbers revealed show a city beset with dangerous bike lane blockages and a disinterested police department.

Over the seven month period from March 1st to September 30th, a total of 27 citizen calls were placed to the police department complaining of vehicles blocking bike lanes resulting in one citation issued.  The lack of enforcement combined with the low cost to drivers for the infraction, $59 as we reported last August, puts bicyclists in the precarious position of having to cross the solid white line and swerve out into traffic, a move that has been identified by bike safety groups and the insurance industry as extremely dangerous.

Will Emeryville wait for a bicyclist to be killed
or severely injured before action is taken?

Twenty seven calls and one ticket written; those are the kinds of odds that make people willing to break the law.  That’s nearly the same odds as being dealt a first hand flush in seven card poker.  And that’s calculated only for the cars that receive citizen complaints.  If nobody calls the police to complain about your illegally parked car, a likely thing, your odds of getting a ticket for blocking a bike lane drop to something much lower than one in 27. 

This information reveals an Emeryville Police Department that places bike safety very low on its list of priorities.  By definition.

Vehicles blocking bike lanes isn’t relegated only to Emeryville of course.  In fact there’s a growing social movement to stop the dangerous practice.  Many cities are responding to the calls by increasing the fines and increasing patrolling for violators, as Chicago did in 2017.  In 2018 in Virginia and Maryland tickets for blocking bike lanes averaged over $220 and $260, respectively.  In Emeryville however, no such concern for bike safety exists and the deadly combination of low fines with lax enforcement spells future calamity.  

Police Department Purposely Doesn't Cite Violators

An Emeryville Police Department employee, wishing anonymity, told the Tattler he doesn’t see the dearth of tickets issued as a sign the Department isn’t taking bike safety seriously.  Upon learning that the public records request information was going to be made public by the Tattler, the police employee used a classic appeal from ignorance fallacy, stating, “The fact that we didn’t ticket these violators shows that we value bike safety.  These violators were asked to move along, solving the problem of the [bike] lanes being blocked.”  He added, “The priority is to get the vehicle out of the bike lane”.  Taking him at his word, none of this acknowledges the fact that drivers are typically not in the vehicles that are blocking the lanes and the obvious fact that police asking drivers to move is not solving the problem that parking in the bike lane is a good solution for drivers (especially if there aren’t any police visible).  

If police asking drivers to not park in bike lanes (without writing tickets) were having a palliative effect on bike lane blockage in Emeryville, there would tend to be fewer vehicles blocking bike lanes over time.  What we’ve seen is the opposite.  Indeed, to expect that issuing a ticket would not have a deterrent effect is to overturn the most basic precept upon which the whole paradigm of crime and punishment is based.  Bike lane blocking drivers that don’t have a moral compass and can’t seem to see the havoc they cause and the recklessness of putting bikers’ lives at risk will find the havoc on their bank account after they get a ticket for doing so.  

If Emeryville starts taking bike safety more seriously, fewer drivers will block our bike lanes and bikers will be safer.  As it stands now, drivers have a better than 96% chance they won’t get a ticket for blocking a bike lane and a $59 fine if they are among the unlucky 3% that do get a ticket.  The remedy for Emeryville is easy but so far the will is lacking.

Blocking Bike Lanes: Code Should Reflect Public Safety Hazzard

Q: What Happens When Public Safety Fines Are Too Low?

A: Public Safety Goes Down

Opinion

Emeryville has a big problem.  Delivery trucks keep blocking our bike lanes, putting bikers in harm’s way as they swerve out into the adjacent traffic lanes to avoid colliding with the trucks.  It’s not a problem restricted to Emeryville of course but it’s a problem that begs for a solution nonetheless owing to the extreme danger to bicyclists when vehicles collide with them.  We suggest a modest correction to a large and unacceptable problem: increase the fines for vehicles blocking bike lanes from the existing $58 to at least $303.

As it stands right now, the Emeryville vehicle code provides for the same $58 fine for vehicles blocking a bike lane as blocking a vehicle traffic lane.  Both infractions are seen as equally egregious by our vehicle code.  But both are not equal.  Numerous studies have shown a bike swerving from a bike lane into a traffic lane as an exceptionally dangerous move….for the bicyclist.  Even at normal city vehicle speeds, the human body cannot absorb the kinetic energy of a 3000 pound vehicle's impact.  The result is extreme injury or death.  Compare that with the possible consequences of the other infraction; a vehicle rear-ending a delivery truck blocking the traffic lane.  In that case, even at normal city speeds, the bodies involved are encased in cocoons of steel with seatbelts and airbags.  The result of such collisions is vehicle damage but more importantly, little or no harm to people.

Our vehicle code should reflect this extreme difference in harm to human health and safety.  Fines for the two should not be equal.

$58 in Emeryville
Cost of doing business.

If a vehicle in Emeryville blocks an intersection wheelchair crossing, the fine is $303.  It’s bad for someone in a wheelchair when a vehicle blocks them; they have to travel as much as an extra two blocks in that case.  We in Emeryville think it’s terrible for drivers to inconvenience our neighbors in wheelchairs like that.  As a result, it’s bad for the driver….$303 bad.  But shouldn’t the possible maiming or killing of a bicyclist be considered at least as bad as inconveniencing someone?

What would the net result be of increasing the fine for a vehicle blocking a bike lane but keeping the fine the same for blocking a traffic lane?  It would mean delivery trucks will start blocking our traffic lanes instead of the bike lanes.  It will mean there will be unhappy drivers.  But with the fine rates as they are right now, there are unhappy bicyclists.  There are always losers whenever something is regulated in the public commons, it's true, but we should always strive to provide the greatest protection against the greatest threats to public safety.  

FedEx and other carriers violate parking laws routinely.  In fact, they simply write any parking tickets into their cost of doing business.  That’s well documented.  But they won’t spend extra money when they don’t have to.  Emeryville City Hall made fatal errors in not forcing developers to provide enough parking for delivery vehicles over the years when the buildings were approved.  That’s also well understood by now.  The solution though should not be at the expense of bicyclist’s bodies.  The delivery vehicles need to park in the only safe place available to them; in the middle of the street, keeping the bike lanes open. 

If the City Council moves to increase the fine for blocking bike lanes to reflect the desires of the people to have a municipal code that is interested in public safety in the foremost, we’re going to have a lot of angry (but safe) drivers around here.  And you know what?  That’s better than the existing angry bicyclists who risk their lives as they move around Emeryville.  

We understand the Council is under a lot of pressure from the business community to not implement our ten year old Bike Plan regarding bike boulevards.  They've made that clear.  But are they so craven, so indebted to businesses that they can't increase the paltry $58 fine for blocking bike lanes?  We imagine this existing public safety imperiling fee schedule has been heretofore unknown by the Council.  They know of it now.  This is an easy fix.  The next move is yours, City Council.