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
What can I do if someone takes the parking space that I shoveled?
For a question we’ve gotten a lot: what can you do if someone takes the parking space that you shoveled out? Pittsburgh, for instance, is famous for its tradition of parking chairs, but it also happens elsewhere. As much as it might be good manners to not take parking spaces that someone else shoveled, there’s […]
USPS Will Never Skip Your Mailbox Now
Before you tweet about the irony of a USPS carrier taking the trouble of leaving a “blocked mailbox” note on your mailbox instead of delivering your mail, consider this: The USPS website says, “Subject to state laws and regulations, a curbside mailbox must be placed to allow safe and convenient delivery by carriers without leaving […]
Go Big with BigBoss A-Frame Parking Lot Signs
Parking lot signs make it easy for you to manage parking and traffic control, especially during busy times like events, conferences and shows. But not all kinds of signs are up to the task. Foldable signs can get knocked down. Mobile signs with standard bases restrict your message size. In both cases, your message gets […]
Don’t Turn Away from Problems of Turn Arounds in Your Private Driveway
If motorists repeatedly use your private driveway to turn around on the street, don’t dismiss it as a minor annoyance. Unauthorized access to your driveway has many risks. Traffic backing up in your driveway can bump into parked cars on your property. If the driveway is a narrow one, bigger cars and trailer accessing it […]
Everything you need to know about accessible parking spaces
Accessible parking spaces are mandatory for all parking facilities on a site, including garages and lots, a regulation required by the ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Businesses and privately owned facilities that provide some kind of goods or services much also remove barriers to access in existing lots. How many accessible spaces should there be? […]
Hawaii Governor strengthens distracted driving and seat belt laws
On May 20, the Governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, signed two important bills for traffic safety. One mandates that all occupants in a vehicle, whether sitting in the front or the back, must wear seat belts. The other bill prohibits drivers from using handheld mobile phones and texting (whether with a mobile phone or other […]
Seat belt law tightens in West Virginia
West Virginia drivers may now be pulled over for seat belt violations – by themselves, without any other infractions – if a new measure recently approved by the state’s House of Delegates 55-44 is passed by the Senate.
The history of seat belt usage
For many Americans, safety measures like buckling into a car are almost second nature. Not surprisingly, in 2010, 85% of drivers throughout the U.S. wore seat belts. Seat belt usage hasn’t always been so widespread, though. Even as few as 30 years ago, in 1982, only 11% of drivers used seat belts. Ever since the […]
Parking app roundup
The latest crop of parking apps delivers remote car access, a map of cheap fuel options, and access to private parking spots. The only catch? Most of these innovative apps are only available in certain locales; the parking app market remains sadly fragmented: FordPass Happily, the app isn’t just for Ford drivers. Through a partnership […]
Talking distracts pedestrians more than texting on phone
Distracted driving has been ingrained in most drivers’ (and passengers’) minds since the advent of smartphones. But what about distracted walking? A new study, “The effects of mobile phone use on pedestrian crossing behaviour at unsignalized intersections,” out of the University of Belgrade, aims to investigate the influence mobile phone use, including talking, texting and listening […]
Digital signage is a distracted driving hazard
Even without smartphones, screaming kids, backseat drivers and in-vehicle displays, driving can be dangerous. The open road may pose one of the biggest — and, incidentally, legal — distractions of all. LED billboards, as a recent study, “A field study on the effects of digital billboards on glance behavior during highway driving,” suggests, may pose […]