Re:Guerrilla artist faked downtown LA freeway sign in 2001
by nescioquid on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @03:35PM
(#28226077)
I remember a story about someone's children going through a civics course, which somehow lead to the children petitioning the municipality to install a 4-way stop sign at a notorious intersection. They got the stop signs installed.
When I see stories like yours, I just think that people have no expectation that government at any level will be responsive to the needs or proposals of the citizenry (which is also my expectation, frankly). I find that sobering to acknowledge.
There used to be a notorious bottleneck along a four-lane arterial heading downtown which feeds into a freeway onramp: for half a block, during certain times of day, one of the lanes converted to parking. Traffic would routinely back up for several blocks, as two lanes full of cars had to merge, pass by these 2-3 parking spaces, then split back out into two lanes again.
So... these two guys obtained hard hats, hi-viz vests, and indistinguishable-from-government-issue "No Parking Any Time" signs; one fine day they just walked up and installed them.
The signs have been there ever since. In fact you can look it up on the official Seattle Parking GIS map and see that the entire block is now marked "No Parking Allowed".