San Francisco: Parking Signs

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SF-PayThere.jpg

In typical California (Bay Area) fashion, if there's a right way and wrong way to do something, they'll inevitably figure out a new and even more wrong way to do something. Take parking signs (next to the Train Station) for examples of how they want to kill people, and do things in the least intelligent way possible.

Pay or die

So imagine you're a civil engineer, or human interface guy, or something that just doesn't like seeing stupid things. And you stumble across this.

SF-PayThere2.jpg
There are these signs, placed every 20 feet along a bike/walking path. Not intelligently placed between the cars and path, but about 3-5' in the path. And they're not soft, bendable, etc., they're nice, thick aluminum signs that will cut you in two before they bend, in nice sturdy cement. Something that will fuck you up if you walk or ride into it -- and when you're looking at them from the edge, they're practically invisible
SF-PayHere.jpg
My first thought is, "Are these needed?" and "What are the alternatives"? Well about every 40' is one of these pay stations. So they're virtually everywhere. You can see the next one from the current one, so there's no need for the intermediate sign or two between them. But let's pretend there was.
SF-NoSign.jpg
If you needed a sign, between the pay stations, is there anything else you could put a sign on, that isn't a human vivesecting pole with a razor sharp sign at crotch height? How about a fence that runs the same length and is a mere 5' away. You could put signs on that fence, and that would be much safer, and cheaper (you didn't have to sink the poles). And so on.
SF-LaneRemoval.jpeg
How to remove lanes and parking: a 2-fer.

Fixed it

Since that wasn't annoying enough, they fixed it more.

There used to be a walking lane, a row of perpendicular slanted parking, a bike lane, 2 car lanes... so they spent millions of dollars to fix it. Now it has a bike lane, parallel parking (1/3rd the parking), 1 driving lane (half the traffic flow), and a spacious walking path that is used but nowhere near full. So the city: spending your money to increase traffic and parking problems at once. Gee thanks.

Conclusion

In the end, I don't care what stupid things a city does. I only visit SF weekly, yet there's so many dumb things they do, you have to wonder about all of the IQ's of SF city workers. It is not any one dumb thing, it's sort of all of them together. The best way to put up a parking sign seems to be the least of it. But still hints and the degree of dumbfuckery that is the bay area.

Written 2018.01.28