Sunnyvale, CA Public Conduct: Jaywalking (2026)

Sunnyvale Municipal Code Section 10.52.050, "Pedestrians—Crossing at right angles," makes it unlawful for a pedestrian to cross a roadway anywhere except by a route at right angles to the curb or the shortest route to the opposite curb, unless the crossing is inside a marked crosswalk. This is Sunnyvale's local diagonal-crossing/jaywalking rule, layered on top of the crosswalks the city traffic engineer establishes and maintains under Section 10.52.010. Section 10.52.030 lets the traffic engineer post signs on specific roadways prohibiting pedestrian crossing outright, and Section 10.52.040 makes it separately unlawful for any pedestrian to cross in violation of one of those posted signs.

A companion rule, Section 10.52.070, bars pedestrians from blocking the flow of foot traffic on a sidewalk in commercially zoned areas. None of these sections carry their own penalty clause; they fall under the citywide Title 10 infraction structure. Chapter 1.04's general penalty provisions list Title 10 Chapters 10.08 through 10.60 as infractions under Section 1.04.010(b)(5), and Section 10.52.050 is not among the sections carved out for civil-penalty treatment in Section 1.04.010(c), so a violation is cited as a criminal infraction rather than an administrative ticket.