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
NYC Expands Traffic Relief Program
The traffic at Times Square (via >streetobservations.com) June 6, 2012 — Last July, New York City implemented a traffic program aimed at relieving congestion in midtown. The program initially affected 110 blocks and 23 intersections on the slowest moving streets in Manhattan. Now, it more than doubles, in keeping with long-term trends in midtown traffic. […]
Handicap Parking Gets Another Boost with License Plate Detection Software
Overstay your parking spot? New technology will alert the police and result in a fine. (Via myparkingsign.com) May 30, 2012 — After our coverage of a new app that combats handicapped parking, we’re pleased to celebrate the success of automated license plate detection software. Cameras installed in parking patrol vehicles allow cops to take pictures […]
Fake Stop Signs Don’t Reduce Potential for Increased Driver Safety
May 29, 2012 — While every driver on the road has at some point run a stop sign, or at the very least failed to come to a complete stop on each occasion, remaining cautious on the road is vital. In almost all cases, stop signs, like the one above from RoadTrafficSigns.com, are placed deliberately so as to […]
Manhattan Ranks as Top City for Cyclists, More Bike-Friendly Change in the Works
May 25, 2012 — New York City ranks #8 on Bicycling’s Bike Friendly Cities, the only eastern state in the Top 10. New enterprises that focus on a biker-friendly city have improved the ranking, although many more changes are necessary to supplement the Big Apple’s transportation infrastructure. The number of bicycle owners is expected to […]
New Smartphone App Helps Combat Illegal Handicapped Parking
May 23, 2012 — Those who illegally park in designated handicapped parking spots and might want to think twice before doing so. The growing issue of able-bodied citizens in handicapped parking has outraged disabled drivers: such instances, they say, violate parking rules and regulations in the ADA. To address this concern, states have broadened federal […]
DOT Relaxes 46 Sign Compliance Deadlines
A yield sign, one of many set to be updated. Image via RoadTrafficSigns.com. May 22, 2012 — The Federal Highway Administration, according to an announcement earlier this week in the Federal Register, relaxed deadlines for state and local road transportation departments to update signage. The U.S. Department of Transportation had previously instated a requirement for […]
Signage Differences Make Electric Cars Impossible
May 18, 2012 — The future is here, but it needs signs. The federally financed EV Project, intended to build infrastructure for the widespread use of electric vehicles, is running into some hiccups — mainly in the form of typography and image. That is to say, signs. Just a few different signs denoting EV-charging spots. […]
Mother’s Day Crash Kills Four Young Mothers
May 15, 2012 — Normally a day of celebration, Mother’s Day ended tragically for four new mothers in Chicago this year. Tyshyra Hines, Alicia Goston, Bernadette Harris, and Ieshia Nelson, all in their early 20’s, were driving to Goston’s grandmother’s birthday party. Three were close friends. The fourth was dating one of their brothers. Now […]
Killer Billboard Campaign Dies Young: Global Warming Denial in the Hot Seat
The Chicago-based Heartland Institute has launched a campaign of crazy- both on the billboard and off. May 10, 2012 — Whether you’ve been watching the primaries or American Psycho, you’ve probably realized that it takes crazy to know crazy. Heartland Institute, a libertarian public policy think tank in Chicago, has come under fire recently for […]
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 […]