If you have recently parked in a legal spot near a bus stop and then received a ticket in the mail for $110, you can probably blame it on the new AI-powered cameras being used by Alameda Contra Costa (AC) Transit District.
Last fall, AC Transit began using an automated enforcement program in which cameras mounted on the front of buses gather information when they suspect that a car is illegally parked or stopped at a bus stop. The cameras take a time and date-stamped 10-second video of the potentially offending vehicle, as well as a picture of its license plate.
AC Transit Media Affairs Manager Robert Lyles confirmed in an email to the Alameda Post that the information is then reviewed by “trained law enforcement personnel” to determine if a citation should be issued.
Yet some Alameda residents are being mistakenly issued parking citations. At $110, the citations are costly and the process of protesting the ticket is time-consuming.
Parents at Kiddie Kampus Cooperative Preschool are among those Alameda residents who have been wrongly issued the $110 citation. The bus stop in question is located on Pacific Avenue near Main Street. Parents park along Pacific Avenue to drop off and pick up their children at the school.
Jonathan A. S. Quamina, a parent at Kiddie Kampus, spoke to the Alameda Post about his experience, saying that in October 2024 he had twice parked two car-lengths away from the bus stop—in legal spots—yet was mailed two $100 citations. His surprise at the citations turned to annoyance when he saw that he had only 14 days from the date on the notice to contest the ticket. By the time the citation had reached him in the mail, that left only seven days.
“They make it difficult to fight the ticket,” he complained. “The whole thing is dodgy because you can’t contest it online.” Worried that mailing in a request might not make it to AC Transit in the allotted time, he took time out of his day to visit the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Contract Services Unit located at 2425 12th Street in Oakland, where he filled out a form requesting a review.
There is a sign near the bus stop telling cars not to park in front of the sign (where the bus stop is located), but Quamina and at least five other Kiddie Kampus parents were parked in the legal area behind the sign and received warnings and/or citations. One parent who got ticketed was parked nearly a block away from the bus stop.
In frustration, Quamina says he called the City of Alameda twice and left messages, but did not get a response. “I told them they either need to move the sign or make it all ‘no parking,’” he explained, not realizing that it was AC Transit who was issuing the faulty citations, not the City of Alameda.
AC Transit did not respond to requests from the Alameda Post for information on how many cars have been wrongly cited and whether the program has been successful in keeping cars out of the bus stops. Whether the wrongful citations are AI or human errors remains a question.
The bus stop at Pacific and Main isn’t the only area where citations are being mistakenly issued. On December 17, 2024, I parked my car in the metered spot directly in front of the bus stop on Santa Clara Avenue at Oak Street. Two weeks later I received a citation in the mail which claimed I had parked in the bus stop.
Admittedly, the small and grainy photo accompanying the citation made it look like I was illegally parked in the red zone. But I had a credit card statement which proved that I had paid for metered parking. I later drove by and took a picture of the parking spot, using a light pole and the peace sign outside City Hall as a reference to prove that my car was indeed, at a legal spot.
Like Quamina, by the time I received the citation in the mail, it was almost too late to request a review by sending in a letter. It took me an hour and a half to take and print out photographic evidence, drive to Oakland, fill out the form, and come back to Alameda. But with a $110 fine looming, I had no other choice.
When I mentioned my citation to the man behind the counter at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Contract Services Unit, he was not surprised. He assured me that I would most likely get my citation dismissed then added, “Yeah, they still need to work out the bugs in the system.”
Jean Chen is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Jean-Chen.
