Believe it or not, parking’s effects are as far-reaching as any important policy. A community’s parking options shape its culture, economics, and environment. It’s a dynamic and complicated topic: parking can reflect (or even spark) a neighborhood’s gentrifying tensions. It can empower or hamper under-served communities, like the disabled or elderly; it can create or take away billions of dollars in revenue. Parking effects pollution, safety, wealth, and, of course, accessibility. At MyParkingSign, we monitor and report the latest happenings in parking, be they bureaucratic, like increasing fines, technological, like a parking new app, or instructional, like how to manage parking legally and efficiently.
News
Not Necessarily a Lost Cause: Matthew Fox Arrested on DUI Charges
A still from “Lost,” in which the pill-popping alcoholic Jack Shephard reads a piece of John Locke’s obituary, on his way to a funeral home. May 8, 2012 — It seems like fodder for a Lost joke that the man who portrayed alcoholic surgeon Jack Shephard has been arrested in a landlocked city on […]
Local Business Owners Feel the Impact of Inexplicable No Parking Signs
Studio City store owners lost significant revenue after these signs were inexplicably posted in early April. Photo by David Crane/Daily News Photographer. May 4, 2012 — Shopowners in Studio City, Los Angeles are furious over a batch of temporary No Parking signs posted by the Department of Water and Power three weeks ago. The signs were posted […]
Signs of a Four-Way That Won’t Blink
April 24, 2012 — In last week’s Friday Five, the SmartSign blog posted about NMDOT installing blinking four-way stop signs at several mildly congested intersections in the Alamogordo area. After conducting a comprehensive traffic study, New Mexican officials have decided that the number of motorists passing through the intersections were too few to warrant a […]
UK School District on New Speed Limit: “Twenty is Plenty”
April 20, 2012 — In Newcastle, UK, lawmakers are enforcing a new “Twenty is Plenty” campaign to combat speeding drivers in school zones. St. Chad’s Primary was the first facility of several in the district to install Speed Indication Devices (SIDs) on the streets surrounding the school. SIDs enforce speed limit signs by flashing a […]
Tupac’s Coachella Cameo: Groundbreaking for Traffic Signs, Too
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 — This past weekend at Coachella, thousands of fans watched in awe as Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg took the stage with the late Tupac Shakur. The legendary rapper, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996, was projected via hologram to perform a set with the two contemporary hip-hop […]
Safety Blurb: New Safety Splice Sign Post System Saves Lives
Friday, April 13, 2012– The special bolts in these sign posts reduce the impact of a car’s full inertia in case of a collision. Cyclists and drivers have been known to drive into sign posts as a result of drunk or distracted driving and seriously hurt themselves. Luckily, new Safety Splice Sign Post technology uses special […]
Grammar-Driven Confusion
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 – How far would you go to get a refund for being unfairly towed? Mark Vincent, a Park Slope chiropractor, is considering taking his case to the New York State Supreme Court – all because of a poorly worded No Parking sign. A reminder from SmartSign
New York Introduces Skeletons to Make You Slow Down
April 6, 2012 — New York State is introducing, for your driving pleasure, the skeleton-emblazoned digital billboard. For the first time this summer, two lucky New York city streets saw the installation of what the Department of Transportation is calling “skeleton speed boards.”
Distracted Driving Month: Putting Texting in a Safer Context
Even a playful sign like this one can get a crucial message across to drivers. Texting or talking on a cell phone behind the wheel can be as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol. This month is the second annual Distracted Driving Awareness Month. To start the month off right, the traffic officials […]
Road Rage Takes a Fatal Turn
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 — Grand Rapids is still reeling from the shooting death of 42-year-old Lance Byers, but it seems that justice is around the corner. On February 21, at the intersection of Lafayette and State Street, Byers was shot and killed by 24-year-old Jeannette Davis, who was traveling down the same road with […]
Self-Driving Cars: Previews of a Signless Future?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 — They may sound like a concept from a George Lucas movie, but driverless cars are coming to a street near you… eventually. Self-driving cars will promote road safety by reducing accidents caused by human error, but they may also eliminate the need for many road traffic signs and obliterate the […]