posted by Elizabeth Fama
Signs of progress are appearing in Hyde Park...or at least in strategic spots on campus.
Ever since my year-long stint in Los Angeles, where these signs are the norm, I've wondered why the City of Chicago still sends Streets and Sanitation workers out to hang cardboard street-cleaning signs by hand. It
can't be efficient. First, there are the man-hours involved in putting up and taking down the temporary signs (don't get me started on the workers who do this job
by car, with
the engine idling). Second, many car owners don't see the signs in time to move their cars. Third, on street-cleaning days parking is unavailable for six hours (9AM - 3PM), although it takes approximately 2 minutes for the machine to clean any given block.
The above signs solve these problems, and possibly two more: people will be less inclined to abandon their cars (operable or inoperable) for months at a time in one spot, and folks going on vacation will know to have a friend move their car.
As far as I can tell, the signs are so far only installed on heavily-parked streets (Drexel, Ellis, and Woodlawn roughly between 55th and 59th Streets), where having a mere 2-hour moratorium on parking every month, on a predictable day, will help to ease parking woes for University visitors and employees.
But I'd like to have them on my block, too.
