Corpus Christi, TX Public Conduct: Jaywalking (2026)

Chapter 53 adopts the state's former Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways (Revised Civil Statutes art. 6701d) as the city's traffic code under Sec. 53-1, and Sec. 53-8, formerly numbered Sec. 53-10, adds two distinct local crossing bans. The first applies specifically within a business district, requiring pedestrians to use a marked crosswalk rather than cross mid-block or at an unmarked location. The second applies citywide to the New Ship Channel Bridge and any freeway or other limited-access roadway, where pedestrians must stay inside a marked crosswalk regardless of whether the location is a business district.

Neither the crosswalk requirement nor the freeway/bridge crossing ban carries its own stated fine in Sec. 53-8, unlike some other traffic offenses in the chapter that expressly label a violation a Class C misdemeanor. Enforcement instead runs through the Code's general penalty provision, Sec. 1-6, which applies whenever an ordinance declares an act unlawful without setting its own fine: the penalty follows state law if state law sets one, and otherwise caps out at $500 per offense, with each continuing violation on a separate day counted as a separate offense under Sec. 1. The Corpus Christi Police Department's traffic section, defined in Sec. 53-2, is the enforcing body for chapter 53 offenses generally.