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> Why should you have so many rules for parking? There are three options: - You can park here for free - You must pay to park here - You cannot park here Y
by jmilloy 12y ago
> Why should you have so many rules for parking?
There are three options:
- You can park here for free
- You must pay to park here
- You cannot park here
You're examples only relate to the first two, where you can always park, but sometimes you have to pay and sometimes you don't. It's easy in those cases to only specify when you have to pay, even when the schedule is different on Sunday (like your third example).
When you have to add in additional information about when you cannot park (for cleaning, snow removal, altered traffic patterns during heavy commute times, etc), now you need two signs. Well, or two notices on the same sign. You can park for free if it's not a time on either notice. This is in the example at the top of the article.
- wlesieutre 12y ago- You can park here for free for one hour - You can park here for free for two hours - You can park here for free for as long as you want - You must pay to park here and can park for up an hour - You must pay to park here and can park for up to two hours - You must pay to park here and can park as long as you want to pay for - You cannot park here
- jmilloy 12y agoAgreed. Of course, we can now argue whether this level of granularity is unnecessarily complicated. However: it's hard to argue that the three cases that I listed are too many rules, yet it's easy to see that they can cause too many signs using the OP's design. Such a simplification made the point much clearer, but I should have made that explicit.
- gknoy 12y agoElectronic signs. - Free parking (5 hours remaining) - No Parking (4.5 hours remaining) Of course, that has its own problems, (Power, vandalism, bugs ...) but it would help drivers a LOT. As the article said, no one cares about WHY they can't park, usually. It's only "can I park here right now?" that matters in most cases.
- dalke 12y agoWhile true, the second most important thing is "can I park here for as long as I need?" "Free parking (1h 45m remaining)" doesn't help if you want to park for 2 hours and don't know if the next time period is "no parking" or "max 1 hour parking". The third most important thing is likely knowing about some time in the future, like "will my visiting friend be able to park here on Saturday evening?"
- nashashmi 12y agoIn addition, - you cannot park here on such and such time for street cleaning. - you cannot park here on such and such time for rush hour - you cannot park here on such and such time for snow removal. Plus there are license plates that are sometimes given permission to illegally park based on the reasons not to park.
- afterburner 12y ago- you cannot park here during such hours without a permit - (unsigned, city-wide bylaw) you cannot park anywhere during such hours without a permit unless otherwise indicated - (unsigned, city-wide bylaw) you cannot park anywhere for more than 3 hours unless otherwise indicated - you cannot park between the signs (taxi stand/pickup)
- ma2rten 12y agoAlso: - no stopping anytime - you can not park here on school days - handicapped parking only - commercial loading only
- civilian 12y agoAlso! - 3 minute passenger loading! - Taxi-only parking - Ambulance waiting spot All of these spots are also "idling police car" spots.
- ams6110 12y ago
- noer 12y agoActually, the time limit on paid parking doesn't necessarily mean that you can only leave your car in that paid space for two hours. it means you can only pay for two (or whatever) hours of parking at a time.
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoIn the UK on-street parking for 1 or 2 hours usually has a "no return" period too.
- daxelrod 12y agoThere are unfortunately more dimensions: - When standing is allowed - Different sets of rules for commercial or permitted vehicles They could post two of the proposed signs, one for commercial and one for noncommercial vehicles, for example, but standing rules are going to be harder to add to that design without making it more confusing.
- jmilloy 12y agoHaving a single (different) sign for each audience makes a lot more sense than a different sign for each rule or timeslot. That is, commercial vehicles and pedestrians can each have their own sign, and only when necessary. Then at least I know that I'm looking at all of the information that pertains to me, and that this information isn't contradictory.
- sukilot 12y ago"Standing" is for vehicles, not pedestrians. It means "idling engine".
- mod 12y agoI don't think he missed that, I think he used the wrong word to refer to non-commercial vehicles.
- jmilloy 12y agoYeah I wondered about that, and guessed wrong. I'm used to seeing the words "idling" or "stopping" for cars and "loitering" for people, and never "standing". I suppose if you want to put non-parking rules (e.g. idling rules) on a parking sign, and then complain that the parking sign is too complicated, then that's a different problem.
- PeterisP 12y agoThe whole point to limiting signeage is that the traffic regulators must keep the rules simple enough so that they're short enough so that someone driving past the sign can fully understand it without stopping and/or endangering traffic. Need temporary exceptions for snow removal? Change the signs. Can't afford to change the signs so often? Don't make so many and complicated exceptions or schedules. You can make a really reasonable system by only using simple signs in the form "[park here/don't park here/pay-park here] IF [time-range-sign] OTHERWISE default". Many countries are successfully doing this - my home city is just fine and most of the parking signs are either (a) no parking here; (b) pay-parking on workdays 7:00-21:00 (otherwise default free-parking); (c) no-parking on 7:00-19:00 on workdays (to free up a lane for traffic) or (d) parking forbidden except permit #xyz.