To park or not to park? Conflicting signage is the question.

A regular reader sent a note to the Green Mouse.

Just noticed this yesterday on Vincennes, just before DePauw. Nice parking spots complete with a no parking sign. All that’s missing is a no-progress anchor.

Our crack graphics team can fix that.

Grid Control, Vol. 17: Judging by the misdirection of this "CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP" sign, we now reside in the British Empire.

As we await word of HWC Engineering's cross hatch direction snafu repair project ...

Grid Control, Vol. 16: What about HWC's cross hatching correction? Will this be finished before or after Team Gahan declares victory?

 ... and, in fact, as we await the resumption of "grid modernization" work of any sort, with little occurring since early July and during the usual public communications blackout imposed by Warren at Works, let's consider another angle, as hinted by this actual New Albany street sign, as contributed by regular blog reader A.

Of course, none of these "future" directional signs are supposed to be visible until the changeover begins, and as for when this might be, recently each Tuesday meeting of the Bored has featured dire apostles of officialdom explaining that this will come "next week," and so we can't really explain when this will be, seeing as the calendar has become tantamount to a Dali painting melted atop Duggins' former desk.

Look at the arrows in the New Albany "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop" sign, above.

Now, look at the arrows in these two variations, as cribbed from Google images.

As our alert contributing reader (and driver) notes, "The signs posted for when Spring Street starts being two way have the arrows going the wrong way. Didn't know if you saw that but wanted to share with you. I personally need signs to give correct info and not lead me into oncoming traffic."

That's because strictly speaking, New Albany's brand new "cross traffic" signs are appropriate for Great Britain, Ireland or Australia, where traffic proceeds on the left, not the right as is the case here in America.

Meanwhile, if you search images for "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop," this is by far the most commonly returned result, which is succinct and non-ambiguous.

It leaves a final question, surely destined to be ignored when Gatekeeper Nash convenes BoW on Tuesday morning: Which one of Jeff Gahan's corporate-campaign-donating consultants, engineers, pavers, vendors or all-purpose fluffers got this one wrong? 

---

Previously:

Grid Control, Vol. 16: What about HWC's cross hatching correction? Will this be finished before or after Team Gahan declares victory?

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

Grid Control, Vol. 14: Yes, you can still park on the south side of Spring Street during the stalled two-way grid project.

Grid Control, Vol. 13: "Dear Deaf Gahan and minions: FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, STOP TRYING TO BE COOL AND DESIGNER-ISH. YOU'RE NOT, AND IT'S EMBARRASSING ALL OF US."

Grid Control, Vol. 12: Meet the artistic crosswalk design equivalent of dogs playing poker.

Grid Control, Vol. 11: HWC Engineering meets with St. Marks, city officials nowhere to be found.

Grid Control, Vol. 10: City officials predictably AWOL as HWC Engineering falls on its sword over striping errors.

Grid Control, Vol. 9: "This was supposed to be discussed with us," but Dear Leader doesn't ever discuss, does he?

Grid Control, Vol. 8: City Hall characteristically mum as HWC Engineering at least tries to answer the cross-hatching question.

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

Grid Control, Vol. 6: Jeff Speck tweets about NA's grid changes, and those missed bicycling opportunities.

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

Grid Control, Vol. 4: But this actually isn't a bus lane, is it?

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

Grid Control, Vol. 2: Southsiders get six more parking inches, but you gotta love those 10-foot traffic lanes on Spring.

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

Institutionalized counter-productivity: The apparent goal is to tear down these brand new signs in less than a year.

On Tuesday morning, at the same time this man ...

... was explaining a proposal to revert one-way streets to their original two-way use, the city was busily ...

... replacing improperly reflective, soon-to-be-obsolete one-way street signs with brand new ones.

I'm sure we can blame this on the feds somehow.

By the way, "institutionalized counter-productivity" has 13 syllables, twice the number permitted by ordinance. You can bet your sweet bippy that the city's corporate attorney soon will be busy issuing a warrant.

I'll be going into hiding ... with a thesaurus.

The mark of The Pirate? If so, the orange paint would be applied to the sign itself, not the post.

NAC readers have reported seeing street signs with posts marked in orange, and subsequently, an animated discussion took place at Facebook.

I can't find the minutes, and Bored of Works meetings tend to blend together like a bad, prolonged acid trip, but I recall recently hearing the city engineer Larry Summers explaining an impending street sign replacement project (remember in 2015 when an out-of-town firm was tagging signs?) due to begin soon.

If I'm recalling this correctly, and not just rehashing a dream I had after consuming a fifth of gin and two dozen limes, the object of the sign replacement project is to install new signs rated higher for luminosity and visibility, or some such -- speed limit signs that can be seen more easily by drivers racing past them, and those one-way street signs the mayor keeps telling gullible people like Greg Phipps will be gone very soon, but will not speak about publicly because in New Albany, we don't communicate unless the information is extracted forcibly from the cold, living hands of a time-serving functionary.

Or something like that.

As for the orange swatches on these signs, your conspiracy theories are welcomed, and I promise to use them as part of my Danish asylum request.

Signage disparities at the State Street Parking Garage.

Use of the parking garage emerged as a topic at Tuesday morning's merchant meeting.

There are two problems with the explanation above (particularly "evenings and weekends") as printed on recently installed exterior signage.

First, the print is too small to be gleaned by passing motorists who want to know the story without stopping. As most business owners would tell you, better to approach it like this, with a mostly truthful bait 'n' switch:

FREE PARKING

*with certain periodic exceptions

Moreover, exterior and interior signs don't tell the same overall story with respect to permit and public spaces ...

 ... and the interior signs make no mention of the free times. It's misleading, and the interior signs need to be brought up to date.

None of this explains the parking garage's chronic emptiness -- here, on a Wednesday evening around 7 p.m.

Part of it is cultural. Part of it is the idiocy of our auto-centric straitjacket. Part of it is the inability of downtown stakeholders to think consistently beyond their front doors, to the larger street (and parking) grid spread over numerous square blocks, one best understood (and overhauled) by urban-oriented solutions taking place all over the country.

But those parking garage signs ... at least they can be harmonized, can't they?

I-65 signage: Almost anything except two-way streets to occupy Jeff Gahan's misdirected time.

C-J photo we hope was taken BEFORE the road opened.

File under: "Tempests in a teapot" and "red herrings."

What's missing on new bridge signs? New Albany, by Lexy Gross (C-J)

... "Mayor (Jeff) Gahan and a number of residents raised concerns that New Albany was not displayed on directional signage as you cross the new bridge into Indiana," spokesman Mike Hall said in a release.

According to the release, a compromise was reached between INDOT and the city, and locals can expect to see the addition of New Albany signs within the next six months. Hall said Thursday that the exact placement of the new signs hasn't been determined.

Never mind, guys. We've already completed the drawings. Just TIF them signs, and we're golden.

Then, a bit further down:

After all ...

City officials giddy as New Albany finally makes Guinness Book of World Records (REPOST).

 ... “From their starting and ending points on the Clark County line, these entrance and exit ramps to I-64 travel traverse almost three miles in each direction, enabling cars and trucks to pass through New Albany residential neighborhoods quickly and easily to reach points further afield, without ever being compelled to spend time in the city itself.”

Any chance the mayor might get the city's street grid functioning correctly BEFORE welcoming hudreds more pass-throughs?

Can't you read the parking signs? Yes, no ...maybe?

I'm so old, I can remember when the issue of way-finding signs for parking was mentioned at a merchant mixer meeting. It was around September, 2014. Specifically, downtown retailers asked whether there was some way of letting visitors know when the State Street parking garage could be used free of charge -- perhaps a banner visible from the street, prior to the holiday shopping season.

They were told by the city's representative that although this had never occurred to anyone previously, signs would be made. Roughly nine months later, the parking garage finally bore bright new signs like the one below.

And still nowhere is there a banner visible from the street, explaining how to use the garage, and when it can be used free of charge: Always on the upper two levels, at night, and on weekends.  

The photos below illustrate signs that greet the visitor to the city's newly dubbed "Lot J" on Pearl between Elm and Spring.

Needs a haircut, but so does the city. Can we park here ...

 ... or is it for permit holders only?

How do we get out?

Hey, does anyone know if I can park here?

ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Last week I was walking the alley between Spring and Elm, headed east. True, the garbage can be smelly in high summer, but the stretch between St. Mary’s and the old Reisz school isn’t so bad.

Approaching the eternal aesthetic and drainage nightmare otherwise known as 15th Street, an expanse that summarizes the daily streetscape squalor that we as a community apparently have decided to accept as irrevocable, I cursed yet again at being unable to see to my left owing to a huge expanse of foliage.

It wasn’t a tree, but one of those nasty, fibrous weeds masquerading as trees, or perhaps steroidal bushes. I call them “garbage trees,” and usually sprinkle epithets around references to them. They’re invasive and seemingly impossible to kill.

Speaking of murderous, be aware that walkers in auto-centric New Albany understand quite well their obligation to be the vigilant “seers” in our dysfunctional transport equation. I couldn’t begin to enumerate the times I’ve seen drivers not paying attention, this being another factor that we as a community apparently have decided to accept as irrevocable, such is the need to shave seconds off the next visit to the drive-through.

Peering around the greenery for perhaps the 20th time this summer, I looked across 15th and saw the Yield sign and RR Crossing marker, both erected atop a heavy wooden pole for the benefit of westbound alley drivers. I’d seen it oft times before, but why wasn’t there one where I was standing?

I looked up and abruptly realized the matching sign pole indeed was there, albeit enveloped and completely hidden by the giant amok garbage tree, which I couldn’t see past when walking the alley – and if it was an issue for a walker, just imagine the issue for a driver, who wouldn’t be able to see cars, bicycles or walkers, the latter barely having sidewalks to use in the first place.

I’d recently been chided for making viral photo sport of a poke weed plant leisurely growing from a storm water drain in a city that just spent $9 million for a water park where you can’t swim, but where neighborhoods experience pop-up splash blocks each time there’s a big rainfall.

One thing led to another, and the following day I took a saw and pair of lopper shears, walked down the alley to 15th Street, and did to that garbage tree what needs to happen to the political career of the recumbent incumbent come November, which is to say it was systematically deconstructed.

I’m neither implying street department slacking, nor suggesting that every blade of grass or weed can or even should be cut. What I will say is this: If the Board of Public Works and Safety intends to spend its time dithering over street pianos and pretending to be the arbiter of public art, then it might consider being truthful and dropping “Safety” from its title.

If Warren has to buy new business cards, tough.

Clearing brush, removing trip hazards, keeping the sidewalks clear of automobiles parked there by the terminally ignorant (and periodically spiteful) are not sexy tasks – except they’re fundamental needs, and constitute what local government is supposed to do, as opposed to posing as concert promoter, amusement park operator and aquatic center carnival barker.

Fundamentals?

They're precisely that. It’s why the best athletes in the world continue to practice. The fundamentals have to be done, and they have to keep being done. The city’s infrastructure needs to be managed, and its physical assets tended.

The mayor’s favored Wizard of Oz costume should be reserved for the annual Halloween party, not weekly duty high atop the 3rd floor.

---

I’ll close today’s column with Jeff Gillenwater’s succinct introduction to a cogent quote, as provided by an unnamed correspondent, who is referring to a photograph of overgrown grass in and near city streets.

If you want to know how New Albany works, understand two things: 1. the following comment and 2. that there are any number of "first families" who still consider themselves pillars, a bunch of political party stalwarts, and any number who qualify as both who won't respond to this kind of truth at all as we dump tens of millions into the sort of frivolous projects for the already wealthy where they like to cut ribbons and pat each other's derrières.

"That's been the view from our front porch for decades. My husband mows the sidewalk every time he mows the lawn.....the parts of the sidewalk that don't have huge chunks of broken concrete bending up. (You could break your mower blade if you try to mow there. So, parts of the sidewalk get the weed wacker treatment).

“Wait....there's something missing in this photo....oh, yes.....the healthy stand of Johnson grass that grows from the busted asphalt on our entire street. That grass is super-healthy this year from the many episodes of standing water that sets on the asphalt because the sewer drains don't take care of the problem when it rains. We don't use rain gauges. I just measure the number of inches away from our front step that the lapping flood water has crept.

“In our front yard, my husband and I have one of the few remaining working vintage gas lights in New Albany. Did you ever see a gas light with flood water lapping at its base in the middle of the night with the moonbeams shining down? If you use your imagine, you can imagine yourself standing on a riverbank with a beautiful lighthouse in front of you. And, we don't need the waterpark. After a good rain, we could water-ski down (our street) in the standing water out front.

“It's never really mattered who the mayor was. It never mattered what political party was in office. This is the first impression that many people get when they come to New Albany. This is the reflection of a city that doesn't care. So, let me be the first to say....this is not a new problem. Some of us taxpayers have been watching this ongoing deterioration with every mayor who has ever been in office.

“We have lovely old homes, and we do our part by making our property look good. But, the views from our porches are infuriating. This is the reflection of a city that has its priorities askew, and has for decades. I hold little hope of ever seeing improvement in the infrastructure. The deterioration has simply been too great. It's gone on for way too long.

“Regular basic city maintenance is a thing of the past. No mayor will ever be able to overcome the mess that's evolved around us. The city can't afford to fix everything now. Fixing all of New Albany's infrastructure now would be like trying to pull a junker car out of a junk yard and trying to restore it to a show-quality vehicle. It would cost a fortune."

This might well be true. Hell, it probably is true.

But someone has to try.

---

Recent columns:

July 23: ON THE AVENUES: A citizen's eloquent complaint about the parking debacle at River Run reminds us that planners and brooms go hand in hand.

July 16: ON THE AVENUES: Louisville Beer, then and now ... and cheers to Rotary.

July 9: ON THE AVENUES: A mayoral petition as prologue to history.

July 2: ON THE AVENUES: "Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it."

June 25: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer (2012).

June 18: ON THE AVENUES: These 10 definitions will help you speak local politics like a native.

Who do I invoice for weed whacking, the railroad or the city?

Damned if there isn't something in there. Wonder what it is?

It's the intersection of the alley and 15th Street, between Elm and Spring.

Still smarting from my rebuke at the hands of the pokeweed lumberjacks, I'm not letting this one go. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll tote my tools and start slashing. It'll be great exercise. There's also a "We Buy Houses" sign halfway up a utility pole on Spring.

I'll get that one, too, because I really detest street spam.

But listen, guys: If someone decides to pay me back for my citizen's initiative, can you just make out the check to the campaign?

Indianapolis firm being paid to inventory city's decrepit street signage.

A friend reports:

Something called VS Engineering has been inventorying signs around the city. I know some in our neighborhood and today they are in yours/mine. Putting serial numbers on some (all?) street signs.

I spotted one of the workers and asked him. All he could say is that his firm is inventorying New Albany street signs to be compiled in a data base. He didn't know why. Perhaps Warren Naps does, given that this project probably emanates from the Bored of Works.

Then there's this:

Beeler & Spring has a new street sign with the city's crest on it. They're pretty full of themselves. 

Why yes, they are, but I haven't had the chance to walk over there and examine. Was it an inlaid variation of this popular recent design?

Or maybe this? After all, it's an election year.

Duct tape.

It makes the city fundamentally better, doesn't it?

City Hall snorts: "But if we have two-way streets, we'll have to replace all these crappy old faded street signs."

Viewed from the southwest.

Viewed from the northeast.

So ... which city entity is responsible for restoring luster to faded signage? It's that elusive Traffic Commission ... in fact, so very elusive that we don't have one.

Did you know that in New Albany, a Traffic Commission is stipulated by ordinance?

So, who's taken over the job?

§ 70.27  ERECTION OF SIGNS.

   (A)   Whenever any ordinance of the city designates and describes a through street, it shall be the duty of the Traffic Commission to place and maintain a stop sign on each and every street intersecting the through street or that portion thereof described and designated as such by any ordinance of the city.

   (B)   The Traffic Commission is hereby authorized to determine and designate intersections where particular hazards exist upon other than through streets and to determine whether vehicles shall stop at one or more entrances to any such stop intersection, shall erect a stop sign at every such place where a stop is required, or in the event the Traffic Commission determines that reduced speed rather than a stop is adequate for safe operation of any such intersection, it shall erect signs upon the approach to the intersection, giving notice of the speed.

   (C)   Every stop sign shall bear the word "stop" in letters of not less than six inches in height, shall be provided with reflector button or, if not, then shall be self-illuminated at night. Every stop sign shall be located as near as practicable at the proper line of the street at the entrance to which the stop must be made, or at the nearest line of the crosswalk thereat or, if not, at a limit line to be indicated by the Traffic Commission.

   (D)   Whenever, by any ordinance of the city, a one-way street is described or any time-limit parking is imposed, it shall be the duty of the Traffic Commission to erect appropriate signs giving notice thereof.

(Ord. 4139, passed 11-27-1939)

I Heart Hoboken on the Ohio?

That's right: Don't be afraid.

Can someone just tell me who's responsible for the latest instance of branding downtown New Albany without asking anyone who actually does business there.

Now, to be sure: While utterly white bread, hackneyed and conventional, right down to the oft-deployed love muscle, at least "The Heart of the City" does have the supreme merit of NOT being Come to City, the legendary discarded dudgeontrocity from 2011/12. As such, I'm prepared to tolerate this one. It doesn't look bad. It looks nice enough.

I just wish that when it is decided to brand downtown, the folks being branded have some participation in the matter ... and that never seems to happen in spite of what happened the time before, and the time before that, and I just wonder why -- that's all.

Guerrilla signage helps slow NYC traffic speeds. Actually enforcing traffic laws (really?) also seems to help.

Let's see. If citizens do it themselves, and the city does what it's supposed to be doing ...

A DIY Approach to Slowing a City's Cars, by Sarah Goodyear (The Atlantic Cities)

At first glance, they look an awful lot like official city speed-limit signs, bold black letters on a white background. "20 Is Plenty," they say.

Look closer, these signs are not NYC DOT issue. First, they're made of plastic, rather than aluminum, and affixed to signposts with zip ties rather than bolts. They are not reflective, the way real street signs are. And at the bottom, in white letters on black, is the logo of the DIY street safety action group Right of Way ...

City officials in New Albany might be more interested in these next two paragraphs, seeing as they've lately taken to insisting that laws to keep semi-trailer-pass-through traffic off downtown streets (i.e, weight limits) actually do exist, even if there exists neither will nor a plan to enforce them.

Vision Zero? Ironically, we have it here, too. We call it Zero Vision.

 ... The signs are headed up to Albany today as part of a lobbying effort led by a new group called Families for Safe Streets, led by New Yorkers whose children, parents, spouses, and other loved ones have been killed by cars. The group is calling for lower speed limits and aggressive implementation of Mayor Bill De Blasio's Vision Zero plan, which incorporates improved street design and tougher traffic law enforcement.

That last part seems to be ramping up already, with WNYC reporting that tickets for dangerous violations such as speeding and failure to yield are up as much as tenfold in February 2014 over the same month the previous year (although in some precincts, such as the 84th in Brooklyn, they were starting from a negligible base of only 10 total tickets for speeding, failure to yield, and ignoring a signal).

Damaged by wind, or destroyed by Vectren?