San Jose abandoned vehicle program frustrates residents

A new city audit has awarded high marks to San Jose’s program for clearing abandoned or inoperable vehicles from city streets. But the finding has met with skepticism and renewed calls for reform from residents and city leaders who say the longstanding problem is still far from being solved.

The report from the City Auditor’s Office found that out of the roughly 10,000 vehicle abatement cases handled by the Department of Transportation between July 2025 and March 2026, the agency managed to resolve 98% within two weeks, the city’s benchmark target for such cases. In addition, the program also hit its goal of resolving 80% of cases through voluntary compliance following a warning. In other cases, the complaint may result in a tow or citation.

But critics point out that often, even when a case has been closed, problematic vehicles remain on roadways, blocking up parking spaces and creating neighborhood blight. Many residents complain their reports of unused vehicles — which can be made through the city’s 311 website and app — seem to fall down a bureaucratic well, and seldom result in actual resolutions to the problem.

“On one level, the performance is excellent,” Mayor Matt Mahan said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “On the other hand, we’re getting pretty abysmal customer satisfaction ratings and people are frustrated. There’s this expectation mismatch.”

City surveys consistently place abandoned vehicles among residents’ top concerns, contributing to a basement-level satisfaction score for the city’s code enforcement efforts of just 38%, according to the most recent figures.

In light of such frustrations, councilmembers responded to the rosy audit with a list of proposed reforms. Among them, councilmembers are asking transportation staff to provide clear explanations to residents of case outcomes, particularly when a case is closed without any enforcement action. Under the changes, the department will also introduce new response time benchmarks, and staff has been tasked with drawing up a plan to better track vehicles that are reported multiple times.

Transportation staff are expected to return to council in April with an update on how the changes are working in practice.

Roosevelt Park neighborhood resident Davide Vieira estimates that within just a few blocks of his home there are at least five abandoned or inoperable vehicles. And while he has reported hundreds of them over the years, more often than not, the city takes no apparent action, he said.

“I don’t do it much anymore,” Vieira told San José Spotlight. “I only turn in vehicles now that are missing parts or severely broken to a degree that they have to declare them unusable on the street.”

Over the years, San Jose has made several attempts to rein in its abandoned vehicle problem. That includes introducing proactive street inspections to identify abandoned vehicles. In addition, in 2022, the city also adopted a tiered priority approach that focuses more of its limited abatement resources on vehicles that appear to be damaged or inoperable rather than those that have simply been on the street for long periods of time.

Nevertheless, officials said enforcement efforts continue to face a number of challenges, including legal constraints that prevent the city from moving some vehicles. In some cases, that is because the vehicle does not meet the legal criteria for abandonment.

In addition, while the Department of Transportation has the authority to tow a vehicle that has not been moved for 72 hours, enforcement staff lack the capacity to track vehicles over time, making it difficult to ensure compliance. As a result, owners served with a warning often move the offending vehicle only to return it to the same spot within days.

Transportation Director John Ristow accepted councilmembers’ recommendations as well as others included in the auditor’s report. He said such improvements are either underway or will be soon.

District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy said improving the city’s response to abandoned vehicles is imperative to maintaining resident trust.

“If we are going to encourage our community to report issues, whether it’s abandoned vehicles, streetlight outages or other things that you can do on 311 — we have to respond,” Mulcahy, who was among the authors of the reform proposals, told San José Spotlight. “Even when we can’t get to the problem and fix it right away, we owe it to the community to keep them motivated to let us know where these issues are, by having a system that works and is responsive.”

Mulcahy said he’s hopeful the city has found solutions that will move the needle on this persistent resident bugbear. But Vieira remains unconvinced.

“It’s just a festering problem that has no end,” he said.

Contact Keith Menconi at [email protected] or @KeithMenconi on X.