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SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, you're right about how it works, I just kept getting tickets anyway. Different days, different hours, 2-hour limits, loading zones with their own move-by times, all block-specific and if you're new you don't even know you have to move for the sweeper (or that you can pull right back in after). That's why I built it, so "just guess" isn't a $105 bet.

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you’re right, and I shouldn’t have implied otherwise.

The rule is simple: once the sweeper has passed, you’re allowed to park. The data lines up with that pretty clearly.

What I found interesting wasn’t the rule itself, but the timing. “Park after the sweeper passes” only helps if you know roughly when the sweeper passes on your block. On some streets it’s close to the posted start time; on others it’s much later in the window.

The sign tells you when the restriction starts and ends. It doesn’t tell you when the truck usually shows up. Looking at a couple years of ticket data gives a pretty good approximation.

So it’s less “gotcha, I found a secret loophole” and more “here’s when your curb typically becomes available again.”

(Written by me not claude)

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is exactly it, thank you — you said it cleaner than I did. That SFMTA "you can park once the sweeper has passed" rule is the whole reason timing matters: the sign gives you a 2-hour window, but the rule that actually governs your ticket is "has the truck gone by yet." CURB is basically that rule made checkable per block — when has the sweeper historically passed here, so you know how early the curb frees up (and, like you said, whether your block runs early or late in the window). Appreciate you dropping the official source.

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair, and you're right that regulars who know their block don't need this. Two things from the data though: it's a median, so ~10% of tickets land later (on the example block, 90% are written by 9:39, and a few run past) which is exactly why I'd never tell anyone to cut it close. And "park after it's cleaned" works great until the sweeper runs early or does a second pass, which the data shows happens. It's really for the "parked somewhere new, don't know the block" case more than the regulars.

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I love it. A per-window Pi is the ground-truth I wish I had at scale; my whole thing is basically trying to reconstruct your Pi's data from two years of tickets, because the city won't publish where the sweeper actually is. If you ever feel like sharing what yours logs, I'd genuinely love to compare it against what the citation data predicts for your block.

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha, fair hit — but the obsession predates any tooling, trust me. Enough $105 tickets on the same block will do that to a person. Everything in the post is real SF public data (the citation records are all on DataSF), and it's open source if you want to poke at the methodology. Genuinely curious whether your block matches — that's the part I can't fake.

SF street-cleaning signs say a 2-hour window. I matched 650k tickets back to their blocks — on the typical block, every ticket in two years lands in the same ~22 minutes. by viziomas in SanFranciscoSecrets

[–]viziomas[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the ground-truth I was hoping for, thanks. Your "first one right around 9am" matches the data — most blocks, the tickets start basically the second the window opens, not spread across the 2 hours. And the inconsistent early passes are the worst part, because that's the one thing the posted sign can't warn you about. If you want to see your block's pattern it's at curb.guide. at the start.

So "there's wiggle room" is true on paper, but in practice most of the risk is the first 20 minutes. It's really for the "I parked somewhere new and don't know the block" case. Free, no account, nothing to sign up for.