The opening of last week’s season premiere of Louie offered up a hilarious scene of Louie and a fellow New Yorker trying to decipher an odd assortment of street signs to see if it was safe to park their cars. This must be a fairly common problem in bigger cities because I came across these weird signage clusters a lot back when I was trying to eek out a living as an urban planner. The picture below was taken in front of my sister’s old house in Evanston, IL (a Chicago suburb) back in the 90s. Despite all of the warnings, it was actually okay to park in this spot at the time we were there.
In any given city I suppose there are a bunch of different parking rules and each one has its own sign associated with it. Every now and then you get a situation where overlapping rules apply and the result is a bit of a jumble. It is a classic — albeit minor — case of the law of unintended consequences. There is simply nothing in a city worker’s toolkit that would allow them to provide an appropriate solution to such a complex problem.
What is needed is a more flexible approach — something that clearly outlines the rules of a given situation but can also be easily adjusted to meet slightly different circumstances.
After returning home, I put together a quick idea that involved more of a calendar-like design, with circumstances in rows and time-of-day in columns. My idea was to have a standard sign to which workers could affix a series of universal “no” stickers at the right points. The design is based primarily on the given situation (and does nothing to address the driveway warning) but I thought it was a good start.
The new sign would save taxpayer money by reducing both the number and variety of signs that needed to be made. It would also simplify the interpretation of complex situations for the average citizen and it could be easily modified by city traffic workers if parking circumstances changed. You could even use it to block off areas temporarily by adding a removable (magnetic?) marker during construction or special events.
The one big drawback that I could see for this design is that it leaves a lot of white space open for minor vandalism. Even I might be tempted to play a few games of tic-tac-toe on such a sign. Overall, though, I think it is a step in the right direction. I hope Louie would be proud.
Have a happy Fourth of July, everyone! Make sure you interpret those parking signs along the parade route carefully.
Revised Parking Sign System
Updates:
I looked at this grid in confusion for a minute (what’s the weather got to do with parking?) and then the penny dropped. You are really on to something her. What an improvement it would be on our parking signs which seem designed to bamboozle – and make a fortune in fines for my local London borough. Therein lies the problem of course but still, I feel a campaign coming on…
Thanks, Penny! I agree that the icons are easy to miss at first. If someone ever went forward with such a program it might be worth doing a few user tests. Hopefully, people would get used to it fairly quickly.