You may have heard that Assemblyman Mike Gatto of Los Angeles recently proposed what he called a “Parking Bill of Rights” to bring some relief to long-abused motorists. When I read that, my heart started racing. I was a little unsure of what to do since it’s been more than 200 years since we last dealt with a Bill of Rights, but I was immediately ready to petition the Continental Congress or do whatever you need to do these days to get a bill of rights ratified.
But alas, when I read more about Gatto’s bill, I sunk back a bit. What he wants to do is alright, I suppose. But it just isn’t radical enough.
His bill proposes to:
- Prohibit cities from ticketing motorists who park at broken meters. The current law prohibiting this (authored by Gatto in 2013) expires at the end of the year.
- Require cities to make spaces available immediately after street-sweeping has concluded.
- Require cities, when installing new high-tech meters, to allow demand-based pricing. Motorists should not be required to pay the same fare at 11 p.m. that is required at 11 a.m.
There are a couple other items in that vein, and, like I said, it’s OK stuff, I suppose. But Gatto doesn’t touch the big problem with parking in Los Angeles and you know exactly what it is: Those maddeningly confusing and contradictory parking signs.
You park in what appears to be a perfectly fine spot and walk up to read the parking sign, just to be sure it’s OK. You see not one or even two signs, but maybe three, four or six signs. They give you contradictory instructions. One sign, for example, says “2 hour parking, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday through Friday” but another sign directly above it, in red letters, says “No parking anytime.”
If you think I’m making that up, you’ll find a picture of that very stack of signs posted on LAist. That outlet asked readers 1 ½ years ago to send photos of complicated or confusing parking signs, and readers obliged. There are other, similar mind benders posted on the site, which you can look up if you need a yuk.
I mean, you’re just parking your car to meet someone for lunch or to stop at a shop and suddenly you’re faced with a puzzle that’s roughly equivalent to decoding hieroglyphics. You see people all the time standing in front of these signs scratching their heads, looking more baffled than Jeb Bush seeing his latest poll numbers. Didn’t the Geneva Convention outlaw this form of torture?
The city loves the confusion because it gets a lot of money from parking tickets (reportedly more than $160 million in 2014). It’s a big growth area of city revenue.
I know the Los Angeles City Council last year started experimenting with new parking signs downtown that are simpler. They’re like a chart depicting when you can and can’t park. Eventually, those easier-to-figure signs are supposed to replace the old ones across the city. But I’m skeptical. Since the city has become addicted to parking-ticket money, the city will probably slow-walk the roll-out. Or devilishly put those old “No parking anytime” signs above the new charts, just to make it so that you can still get a $73 ticket at any moment. After all, this is the same city that tried to rescind Gatto’s 2013 bill so police could still ticket those who park at a broken meter.
Of course, L.A.’s retailers and small offices complain about parking all the time. The scarcity of parking spots, plus the likelihood that anyone could get a ticket at any moment, tends to scare off customers or make them not want to linger. Honestly, if the city put those rational and easy-to-figure parking charts everywhere and left them alone, it could lead to a boom in commerce.
Like I said, Gatto’s bill is OK, I suppose. But honestly, which would you rather see: demand-based pricing on parking meters or a permanent ban on those confounding signs?
Until Gatto attacks the really important issue of the intentionally contradictory parking signs, he shouldn’t use such a grandiose name as a “Parking Bill of Rights.” Maybe something more like a “Parking Bill of OK Stuff. I Suppose.”