
LA's Proposed Parking Signs - prostoalex
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/las-proposed-parking-signs-brilliantly-simple/?mbid=social_fb
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bgroins
So much armchair quarterbacking in this thread. As a long time LA resident,
these signs are a huge improvement over the current system of just adding
multiple signs on the same pole. Many times I have to spend 5 minutes
calculating whether or not you can park, and for how long. Here's a perfect
example, and not unusual to see.
[https://i.imgur.com/wyQsMTv.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wyQsMTv.jpg) I can't
wait for these new signs. "Perfect is the enemy of good."

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jonchang
Advantages of new signs \- consolidates parking restrictions in one easy to
read graphic

Advantages of old signs \- can easily swap out restrictions by adding or
removing signs

IMO it's not very difficult once you get used to it. Remember that the default
is "parking is always OK" and add restrictions as you read top to bottom. Of
course, each municipality may have its own "default" rules. The City of Los
Angeles can tow you after 72 hours on the same street, and Pasadena has no
parking 2-6am every day.

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comex
Regarding "easily swap out" -

In theory, swapping out restrictions should be a matter of checking some boxes
on a web form or something, which would generate an appropriate image and send
it to a printer, with - based on a quick Google - at most a few days'
turnaround time, for (possibly well) below $100 per sign.

In practice, their process will probably be less efficient :)

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RickS
>Husting thought Sylianteng’s design was a good concept to run with
(Sylianteng wasn’t paid for the project)

Wow. That's a shame, to say the least, unless she chose specifically to do
this out of charity.

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wodenokoto
As far as I remember she ran a guerilla campaign, posting these signs all over
the city. My understanding is she did it for the betterment of the town and
possibly her portfolio.

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baddox
The new signs are a better way to display a complicated schedule, but have
they ever considered just simplifying the rules?

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function_seven
The problem with simpler rules is that it would basically be "No Parking,
Anytime".

Often, the reason parking is prohibited during certain times is to open the
lane up for rush-hour. If the rule had to be simplified, I think traffic
decongestion would win over parking availability. Now imagine that same
stretch of road gets sweeped every Tuesday at 2PM. The simplest rule to cover
these situations—and still allow parking at all—has to somehow be
communicated.

I don't care too much for the signs in the linked article, but I hate even
more the existing signs that are all hodge-podgy. At least these signs
standardize the information somewhat, so even if they are complicated to read,
once you get used to them you'll be able to grok it at a glance.

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shawnps
How about an LED sign that just says "YES" or "NO"?

Edit: I guess energy would be a concern though :(

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kapitalx
There is more information you'd have to communicate. Like how long I can leave
my car in this spot before I have to move it.

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seanmcdirmid
It could be conveyed: "no parking until 2PM" or "parking until 5PM" or
"parking for 15 minutes."

We'll have self driving cars before intelligent city street signs, then just
let the cars figure out where they can park.

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zak_mc_kracken
And then it becomes "No parking until 2pm unless you have a green permit, in
which case you can park until 5pm. Except if that green permit has a blue
diamond in the corner, which means you can't park here for more than three
hours".

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shawnps
None of the signs I see on the webpage have those conditions, though.

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pimlottc
What do the sections that are green but have no (P) icon or time limit?
Unlimited parking? The legend doesn't say.

It's also interesting to note that the section heights are not proportional;
they range from 1 hour per unit during morning rush to 7 hours for mid-day. At
first glance, it makes it seem parking is prohibited for nearly half the day
during the work week, while in actuality it's just 4 hours.

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dsommers787
There's no way to indicate a 2hour street cleaning day on any of these signs.
What's the most common street sign in SF/LA?

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function_seven
That day would get its own column. Look at the 4-Column Sign example in the
article.

EDIT: I just realized sweeping isn't always a weekly thing. So yeah, there
would still have to be another sign for that.

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jimfleming
Here's a rather lengthy discussion of a similar redesign that began in LA:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8923196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8923196)

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zerocrates
This one is just an update of that one.

The original designer, Nikki Sylianteng, is cited in the Wired article.

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BinaryIdiot
Ugh, that looks overly complex especially if you want to read it before
parking (or at least getting out of your car). Solar powered LEDs are really
cheap; we actually have a bunch of lights around my way that are entirely run
off of solar with batteries for night. Why can't the schedule be programmed
and a crude digital sign display where you can park and for how long? Maybe
say loading and unloading only at times?

I have a hard enough time explaining to users how to do simply things on a
computer or hell even read directions; this seems like a pain to me.

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prawn
No fallback (battery failure, etc) and more expensive.

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BinaryIdiot
They can hook them into the power grid for fallback if necessary but that
doesn't really matter; simple metal signs also can have issues (spray paint,
hit by car, stickers, etc) and I don't see anyone saying we shouldn't do those
as they don't have a fallback.

Sure they're more expensive but solar is pretty cheap and it will allow them
to modify and adapt to changing parking / driving patterns preventing more
print runs of the signs in the future and possibly optimizing. Seems like a
good way to spend money to me at least compared to a lot of other, more
wasteful uses of tax money.

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prawn
The issues you list for metal signs apply to electronic signs too, meaning
they have even more potential problems.

Wiring them all would be a significant expense for councils.

I'd bet that reissuing metal signs is still going to be far more efficient.
I'd be looking at ways to simplify use of the streets first. Sometimes low-
tech solutions work best.

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mayneack
I first thought based on the shape of the first sign this was an app. Some
city should make an app that gives this info based on your location.

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navait
The signs have bluetooth beacons for this purpose, though i havn't heard of an
app for them yet.

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lern_too_spel
I'll just use red-green colorblindness as an excuse to park any time.

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zuppy
You haven't read the article. The signs should work for color blind people too
because of the stripes.

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kin
Are there any examples of how they're going to handle permits, holidays,
exemptions, etc?

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bgroins
Temporary signage, just like they do today. Permits are already addressed.

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kin
Sorry, let me rephrase. Some parts of the city say things like No Parking
unless with permit (for residents of the street). Or, what about 2 Hr parking
unless Sunday or Holiday? Or what about 8-10AM street sweeping every other
Monday. I feel like the new design doesn't solve for this.

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j15e
Isn't too small to read from a distance?

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DalekBaldwin
Doesn't matter. The rules for parking spaces in LA are usually complicated
enough that you have to stop to read them anyway.

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radley
But not from 10 feet away like these ones.

Current signs are legible 50 feet or further - and more important legible
while you're still in your car.

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halayli
there's no indication for street cleaning for "first Monday/Anyday of the
month".

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mturmon
Two sample takes from a smart LA blog:

Against:
[http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2015/04/new_parking_signs_...](http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2015/04/new_parking_signs_get_mix.php)

For:
[http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2015/04/and_a_vote_for_the...](http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2015/04/and_a_vote_for_the_new_pa.php)

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staunch
They should have made the QR codes bigger, so it would be easier for your car
to read them while you're driving down the street.

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radley
Bad signs.

Fatal flaw: the red / green bars have no context because the the hours & days
text is unreadable except up close and hour/days change from sign to sign.

EDIT: also impossible to read when driving / stopping by in your car. You'd
have to roll down your window or maybe even get out to read everything.

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forrestthewoods
I think these new signs are strictly better than the old signs. If you can
make them more betterer then I and the rest of the world would love to see it.
Someone random from the internet redesigning signs is how these came about.
Let's see what you got.

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tomkinstinch
I'm not the parent poster, but I am colorblind. The green and red bars of
these signs are difficult to discriminate for me, and I suspect many others.

The design could easily be improved by using different colors, since ~10% of
males have some color vision deficiency. Few people have deficiency in their
short-wavelength cones (blue), so blue/yellow could work, or better still
would be simple black and white, or some sort of spatial modulation difference
(solid/striped or border/no border).

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comex
So the stripes are too faint to make the red areas sufficiently distinct?

The obvious problem with an alternate color scheme is that it wouldn't
instantly convey 'good or bad' in the way green and red do (to people with
adequate color perception).

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tomkinstinch
The stripes are too close together, and the contrast is low. They're subtle up
close, and difficult to see from a distance. If the spatial frequency were
lower (larger stripes) and if they used alternating lines of white and the
current color, it might be alright.

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smutticus
To me it would just seem more intuitive to have time go from down-->up. These
signs seem to do the exact opposite.

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Camillo
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