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PERSPECTIVE Connect L.A.'s signs of madness2013/03/21 · my column. They call them "totem-pole"...
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3/22/13 L.A.'s signs of madness - latimes.com www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-parking-signs-20130322,0,5516684,full.story 1/7 Comments 47 Email Share Tweet Tweet 16 0 PERSPECTIVE Confusing and contradictory signage almost seems designed to result in parking tickets — not to mention extreme frustration. There's got to be a better way. Membership Serv ices Jobs Cars Real Estate Subscribe Rentals Weekly Circulars Custom Publishing Place Ad LOCAL LOCAL U.S. WORLD BUSINESS SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT HEALTH LIVING TRAVEL OPINION SHOP TRENDING NOW SHABAZZ MUHAMMAD TURKEY SYRIA MARINE BASE SHOOTING MARCH MADNESS BELL Search L.A.'s signs of madness 106 Recommended on Facebook Connect Like 435k The bias against working women 115 people recommend this. Pi day: Caltech students string paper chain across campus Dane Pereslete and 53 others recommend this. Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com advertisement L.A. NOW POLITICS CRIME EDUCATION O.C. WESTSIDE NEIGHBORHOODS ENVIRONMENT OBITUARIES DATA & MAPS Like 90 Bart_Reed Like 435k
Transcript of PERSPECTIVE Connect L.A.'s signs of madness2013/03/21 · my column. They call them "totem-pole"...
3/22/13 L.A.'s signs of madness - latimes.com
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-parking-signs-20130322,0,5516684,full.story 1/7
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PERSPECTIVE
Confusing and contradictory signage almost seems designed to result in parking tickets — notto mention extreme frustration. There's got to be a better way.
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3/22/13 L.A.'s signs of madness - latimes.com
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-parking-signs-20130322,0,5516684,full.story 2/7
By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times
March 21, 2013 , 3:55 p.m.
Hollywood boulevardier Joshua Wattles was taking his daily
constitutional along the Walk of Fame when he stopped to
point at a pole bristling with parking signs.
"It's predatory signage," said Wattles' companion, whom he
called his "ghostwriter."
"It's gotcha signage," Wattles said, turning to his friend.
"How's that? Is that better?"
"No, predatory signage," the friend corrected him.
The two men were talking about the confusing and
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Pa r kin g sig n s on Ch er okee A v en u e n or th of Holly w ood Bou lev a r d a r e com plica ted en ou g h to defy ev en
th e m ost ca r efu l scr u t in y . “ Th ey ’r e u sin g th e sig n s to con fu se con su m er s,” sa y s Josh u a Wa tt les, a n
a ttor n ey . (Ga le Holla n d / Los A n g eles Tim es)
3/22/13 L.A.'s signs of madness - latimes.com
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-parking-signs-20130322,0,5516684,full.story 3/7
contradictory parking signs proliferating in our city. They're
part of a catalog of parking loony tunes I've been tracking in
my column.
They call them "totem-pole" signs, but totem poles are a snap
to interpret compared with some of these monsters.
Stacked four to a pole, the signs detail parking hours and
meter time limits on different days, preferential parking for
residents and other restrictions that sometimes seem
mutually exclusive.
Some signs are so complex, you need an Excel spreadsheet to
sort out the options.
Like these on Cherokee Avenue near Hollywood Boulevard:
Tow-Away No Parking Any time (arrow pointing left)
Tow-Away No Parking 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. (arrow pointing
right)
2-hour parking Mon.-Sat. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun. 11 a.m. to 6
p.m. (arrow pointing right)
"They're using the signs to confuse consumers," said Wattles,
an attorney. "It's all about their quotas."
As the city points out, the demand for curb space has exploded in recent years, with night life and
traffic busting out in once-sleepy parts of town. Restrictions have followed suit; hence, all the
signage.
"Some locations are a confluence of these different demands and we have a responsibility to inform
the public of these restrictions, which may require 3 or more signs," city transportation spokesman
Jonathan Hui said in an email.
But why language that reads like it came out of a statewide manual, as further interpreted by
engineers and bureaucrats, which is where the sign text comes from? And why are key words like
"except," "daily" and "Sunday only" in such tiny letters?
Hui said the text size is regulated by the state.
We all groaned when the long-established 8 a.m.-to-6 p.m. parking meter hours were extended to 8
p.m. But in some places the cutoff is 9 p.m., or 7. Some streets ban parking during weekly street
sweeping hours while others do not have sweeping at all.
My favorite head-scratchers are the signs with arrows pointing in opposite directions. You have to
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3/22/13 L.A.'s signs of madness - latimes.com
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swivel your head back and forth to figure out what's what. Pretty soon you're dizzy: Where am I
again?
Racing to meet a friend for dinner, you're not going to start a Socratic dialogue with yourself when
confronted with multiple signs. You're going to read until you see something that seems to say you
can park, then hop out. Greg Savelli, head of the parking enforcement group for the city, admitted as
much.
"It all depends on how much time they spend reading the sign," Savelli said in a voice mail message.
"Oftentimes they get to something that says it's OK and don't realize there's something that says it's
not OK."
That pretty much sounds like the definition of confusing and contradictory. Certainly Michael
Brouillet thinks so.
Brouillet has an iPhone app coming out later this month called ParkSafeLA to help drivers read
L.A.'s confounding parking placards.
"I have a bachelor's in computer science and a master's too, and I thought I was pretty smart, but I
was getting tickets where I thought I was parking legally," Brouillet said in a phone interview.
Brouillet, a Texas transplant to Hancock Park, said the parking sign hieroglyphics are particularly
tough on newcomers like him. One time he found a spot near the very hot Library Bar downtown, but
was flummoxed by the signage. So he asked a guy getting out of a Porsche for help.
"He looked very Hollywood. I figured he knew all about L.A.," Brouillet said. "He looked at the signs
for a minute, then said, 'I'll be honest, I don't know,' and walked away."
Hollywood is pretty much the worst place for crazy parking signs. Running up against one of the run-
on signs there is like getting "War and Peace" when you were expecting a haiku.
And God forbid you slow down to try to read the signs before parking. I tried it the other night on
Vine Street north of Sunset; drivers cut around me, their horns shrieking.
"You've got to study 'em like for a test," Nikita McMillan, 34, a Long Beach nurse, said as she
prepared to jump on a tour bus on Hollywood Boulevard. "There's too much going on. "
McMillan said she's also baffled by all the painted curbs — red, green, blue and white. The parking
restrictions are supposed to rev up turnover so more people can get to restaurants and shops. But
even business people are getting nailed by curb color confusion.
Travis Eichensehr, manager of the Geisha House, said he got a ticket unloading stuff in front of his
own Asian-fusion joint. The city, without warning, had repainted the curb yellow.
"I yelled at the meter maid the entire time," Eichensehr said. "'Now you're just maliciously taking
$60 out of someone's pocket.'"
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FROM AROUND THE WEB
Los Angeles is not the only big city suffering from parking sign fatigue. In January, New York City
Councilman Daniel R. Garodnick unveiled new parking signs limited to a Twitter-worthy 140
characters maximum.
"There were signs that were simply indecipherable to any New Yorker, visitor, or even me, a lifetime
resident," Garodnick said in a phone interview.
But at least one critic thinks New York's signs are still confusing. Glen Bolofsky of
Parkingticket.com, whose company helps drivers fight tickets, argues that all parking signs should
be rewritten to national standards. Or how about replacing them with an LED text display that tells
you in real time you're good, or headed for a ticket?
"How about a yes or a no? Or a check mark or an X?" Bolofsky suggested.
Misreading a little sign can have big consequences. Cherish Chen of Silver Lake and a friend once
parked in front of a Hollywood hot spot with a damaged parking sign out front. Their car ended up
being towed.
"It cost almost $500 and we had to walk two miles to get the car," she said.
Chen now avoids Hollywood unless free parking is handy.
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