Collier County, FL Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Obstruction Rules (2026)

Sec. 110-164 of the Collier County Code, part of the county's 2022 Pedestrian Safety Ordinance (Ord. No. 2022-02, amended by Ord. No. 2025-22), makes it unlawful to obstruct or prevent the free use of a sidewalk or crosswalk by other people. It separately bars willfully obstructing the free, convenient and normal use of a public roadway by impeding or retarding traffic, by standing, sitting, walking, running or otherwise remaining in the roadway, or by endangering the safe movement of vehicles or pedestrians. A third clause specifically forbids standing, sitting, lying, walking on, or staying for any purpose between two parallel travel lanes, though lawfully crossing the street is still allowed.

The ordinance carves out a narrow curbside exception: a person may deliver to, or receive something from, a vehicle stopped in a legal travel lane, but only from the side nearest the roadway edge and only in the rightmost (or, on a one-way street, the outer) travel lane. Four categories of people are exempt from the roadway and median rules entirely: on-duty law enforcement, fire rescue and other government employees; workers doing authorized solid waste, recycling, construction or maintenance work; emergency responders such as medical personnel, roadside assistance and tow operators; and anyone directed to stand in a traffic separator by police or fire rescue.

Per Sec. 110-163, the ordinance applies only to streets, highways and sidewalks the county itself owns, maintains and controls in the unincorporated area, and it exempts three-or-more-wheeled motorized wheelchairs entirely. A companion section, Sec. 110-165, applies the same standing/sitting/lying prohibition to any public median six feet wide or narrower, except at a marked pedestrian crosswalk within the median.