Jason Sarris was rebuilding his life. He was going to become sober, renew his driver’s license and find stable housing after being homeless for 12 years. But there was one extra thing holding him back: Nearly $5,000 in fines for jaywalking and similar offenses.

He recalled one ticket vividly. He had looked both ways for oncoming traffic on a street in Novato and then crossed to a Goodwill store, only to find a police officer waiting for him with a ticket in hand.

“I couldn’t afford to pay it,” Sarris said. “I was well known as a homeless person, and I got targeted.”

California has long had a reputation for strict enforcement of jaywalking laws. That is about to change with a new law decriminalizing the offense that goes into effect on Jan. 1. Under the “Freedom to Walk” act, signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, pedestrians will no longer be given a moving violation with a fine of up to $250 if they cross outside of designated intersections.

Sarris, who testified in favor of the bill at a legislative hearing, said in an interview with The New York Times that he started trying to “get his life in order” in 2020.

When he tried to renew his license, Sarris was told he had to pay what he owed in fines for offenses such as jaywalking or walking in a bike lane. He sorted the tickets out in community court but hoped others would not face the same hardship.

“I just hope it gives people the chance to live their lives,” he said.

Though the law stops short of scrapping jaywalking rules altogether, its supporters say it will restore some balance for pedestrians in California’s car-focused culture and also help eliminate the racial and economic disparities in its enforcement. Under the measure, the police will be able to issue a citation only if there is immediate danger to the pedestrian, and jaywalking cannot be used as a pretext to detain someone.

Data from the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act cited by the office of Assemblyman Phil Ting, the law’s sponsor, shows that Black people in San Diego are 4.3 times as likely to be cited for jaywalking as white pedestrians and 3.7 times as likely to be cited by the Los Angeles Police Department.

California’s re-evaluation follows Nevada’s and Virginia’s, which both decriminalized jaywalking last year. Kansas City struck jaywalking from its code. Though jaywalking laws are in place in most states and large cities across the country, the number of citations and fines is much lower in places like New York City in comparison with the West Coast.

Not everyone thinks decriminalization is a good idea. Steve Barrow, program director of the California Coalition for Children’s Safety and Health, said his organization opposed the bill because it would endanger more people, especially children, who would be more likely to follow the example of adults crossing against traffic.

“Removing the jaywalking traffic safety law does not address any inequities in how laws are enforced,” Barrow said. He said people need “well-understood pedestrian traffic safety laws” with traffic congestion, speeding and distracted driving on the rise.

The new law comes after a record-breaking year of pedestrian deaths, where an estimated 7,485 were killed in the United States — the most in four decades, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. But advocates for pedestrians and others say the real problem is that streets are increasingly designed to keep cars moving quickly at the expense of pedestrian safety.

Ting, who represents parts of San Francisco, said he had been pushing for the legislation for two years and hoped it would make it easier for people to cross the street without any concerns.

“There is this fallacy that people crossing the street is what creates pedestrian accidents,” Ting said. “This new law will create greater incentives to cross the street and make sure there is greater equity.”

Ting said he hoped the bill would help to stop the police from targeting vulnerable people. He referred to the case of Kurt Reinhold, an unarmed Black homeless man who was fatally shot in 2020 by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy who stopped him on suspicion of jaywalking, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Peter Norton, an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia who wrote a book about how cars shaped society, said California pioneered jaywalking laws about 100 years ago.

In the early 1900s, the streets were for people, Norton said, and accidents with pedestrians were nearly always blamed on the driver. Back then, the streets of Los Angeles were already congested with traffic.

Car dealers and others in the auto industry worried that concerns about accident liability would reduce car sales, he said. As a result, safety campaigns began shifting the blame to pedestrians, which eventually led to formal jaywalking laws.

At the time, the term “jays” was a harsh insult or slur that meant “stupid” or “hick,” Norton said. The California laws became a model for the rest of the country.

Jaywalking laws have harmed low-income communities the most, as they are less likely to have access to marked crosswalks or parks for safe walking, Mike McGinn, executive director at America Walks, said.

“The penalty for trying to cross the street shouldn’t be death in populated places,” McGinn said. “I think the public recognizes that this is not a law that does much to enhance safety.”

Brigham Yen, a real estate agent and pedestrian advocate in Los Angeles, said he hoped that this would be a step toward making California more walkable, like New York City. It was not unusual, he said, for a California police officer to issue a ticket to someone who stepped off a curb before a crossing signal countdown timer started.

“New York City showed me the freedom that comes with safe jaywalking,” Yen said. “Every law that is passed to increase those pedestrian rights, I think, is a good thing, and it will encourage more people to walk places.”

McKenna Oxenden is a reporter with The New York Times. Copyright, The New York Times.