Tickets for parking on sidewalks rose 150% amid PPA crackdown
A large majority of violations occurred in outlying neighborhoods rather than Center City, which is considered PPA's core enforcement turf.
Curb space is scarce on the streets of Philadelphia and to some drivers, parking on the sidewalk or too close to the corner might feel like a harmless convenience.
But those behaviors, among others, make getting around much harder for people with disabilities and for pedestrians — and they have yielded a bumper crop of tickets, according to the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s report on the first 23 months of its heightened enforcement against mobility-rated violations. The stepped-up enforcement program began May 13, 2024.
Citations for parking vehicles on the sidewalk, rife in some areas, rose about 150% from 2024 to 2025 citywide, PPA said. Parking in front of ramps required by the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act went up by 89%.
“Our goal is to raise public awareness about the harmful impact parking illegally on sidewalks or blocking curb cuts and crosswalks can have on people with disabilities,” PPA Executive Director Rich Lazer said in a statement.
And to consistently punish it hopes of changing behavior, he added.
By far, most violations were in outlying neighborhoods, not Center City, authority officials said.
That was by design, as PPA made an effort to deploy officers to neighborhoods throughout the city. The effort is continuing.
“It signals a determined policy shift to treat blocked access points, sidewalk obstructions, and corner obstacles as serious citywide quality-of-life issues that justify regular and consistent enforcement,” the report says.
For instance, 104,643 citations for parking on a sidewalk in 2024 and 2025 were issued outside Center City, the report said. Within the downtown area, there were 13,892 tickets for sidewalk parking during the same period.
Tickets went to 26,531 vehicle owners for blocking a crosswalk in the neighborhoods in 2024 and 2025, vs. 1,308 in Center City.
PPA considers Center City to be the area from river to river and Spring Garden to Bainbridge Streets.
It was not possible to break out the total violations by neighborhood because parking officers work beats that cross zip code boundaries, officials said. Tickets are mailed to the registered owner’s address, which could be outside the neighborhood.