Can you park your car and block a Kansas sidewalk — even when pulled into your driveway?
With Wichita’s weather staying in the 50s and 60s the last couple weeks, you may be looking forward to enjoying the fresh air with a walk around your neighborhood. But a common nuisance may add frustration to your evening walk — someone’s car blocking a portion of the sidewalk at the driveway.
Instead of continuing the straight walk on the sidewalk you instead go around the vehicle and sometimes walk through the grass or the street to get back on track, which can especially be a hassle if you’re walking with a dog on a leash or a child in a stroller.
While common courtesy may call to avoid parking over the sidewalk in your own driveway, what does the law require?
Both Kansas law and a Wichita city ordinance make it illegal to park on a sidewalk. The city ordinance reads it is illegal for “any person or operator to park a motor vehicle on a sidewalk or in a sidewalk area.”
“My understanding is that it would include blocking a sidewalk on your driveway,” Andrew Ford, the Wichita Police Department’s public information officer, said in an email to the Wichita Eagle.
At the state level, Kansas Statute 8-1571 also prohibits parking on sidewalks.
“Except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic, or in compliance with law or the directions of a police officer or official traffic-control device,” the law reads, in part.
The Wichita Police Department referred The Eagle to the municipal court and clerk’s office to find information on enforcement and the kinds of penalties that could result from blocking a sidewalk. Neither agency immediately responded to requests.
Other prohibited parking areas in Kansas
In addition to blocking sidewalks, Kansas state law specifies several other places where you cannot park a car in Kansas.
Those include:
- In an intersection
- On a crosswalk
- Any bridge on a highway
- Railroad tracks
- In front of a driveway
- Within 15 feet of a fire hydrant
- Within 20 feet of a crosswalk
- Within 20 feet of an intersection
- Within 30 feet of any traffic control device or stop sign
