On-street parking restriction: if it looks funny, it probably doesn’t come from the City (which is humorless).

On an otherwise run-of-the-mill middle-class street, in the altogether run-of-the-mill and middle-class Washington DC suburb of Springfield, Virginia, a tiny sign indicates an on-street parking restriction, under certain terms that need a textual explanation.  The notion isn’t strange that a sign can order drivers not park on this side of a quiet, residential, local road; such restrictions can exist anywhere.  The impetus behind it is understandable as well.  But the means of executing these restrictions should give one pause, leading to a reasonable skepticism towards the impetus, however legit the restrictor’s reasoning might be.

Here’s the sign in question:

These modest signs are ubiquitous in high-density urban settings, where on-street parking requires strict management to promote flow of vehicles or everyday activities of the residents.  Packed into smaller lots, urban homeowners are less likely to have generously sized garages or long driveways (or neither); they must therefore park on the street themselves, as close to their homes as possible.  Homes are closer together, and each home’s street frontage is limited.  Furthermore, urban streets tend to be narrower, thereby making it difficult to accommodate two-way traffic and parking along both sides of the street.  As a result, the demand for on-street parking remains high, often coming from the residents themselves.  Restrictions help ensure the homeowners and residents along these urban streets get top priority.  Suburbia just doesn’t have the same need: lower-density housing, garages/driveways everywhere, wide roads.

Nonetheless, even in places like Springfield, parking restrictions aren’t unheard of, and they can take an almost infinite variety of forms, in terms of the message.  If the local Department of Public Works and its transportation planners decide that on-street parking should fall within strict parameters, its up to that coterie of publicly financed experts to clearly indicate the where and the when for those restrictions; hence the signs.  Anything else (Including poorly-worded signs) elicits an ambiguity that is likely to raise the ire of people who think they’re making a good-faith parking decision on the side of the road where it appears to be legally permissible.

So, how does this on-street parking restriction in Springfield rate?  Does it look weird?

Well, yes and no.  It features red text on a white field, all within a rectangle with rounded corners.  This is typical.  But what about those three tiny blue diamonds on the top?  And why is one of the words in lower-case letters?  Why is the white margin between the red border and the edge of the sign so thick?  And why does the sign’s shape have that semicircle perched atop the rectangle, like an old-fashioned doorway?

The cues should be enough to signal the answer to most readers: this is a homegrown on-street parking restriction.  The owner of the house doesn’t want people parking here.  It’s not hard to guess the reason: motorists might get lax enough that they nudge their cars’ front or rear bumper so it’s blocking one of the two driveways—or, at the very least, the presence of cars makes it difficult to cleanly and easily pull in or out of these driveways.  But such a blanket restriction doesn’t need a sign with text; painting the curb yellow implies no parking or stopping at any time, for anyone (visitor or local).  That degree of restriction is something that the adjacent homeowners can petition with their Department of Public Works to achieve, if they make a strong enough case.  It will probably take time—this isn’t a priority for the typical DPW—and the agent may reject the claim, having deemed the clearance issue not significant enough.  Yellow-curb universal parking restrictions shouldn’t get applied lightly or it can precipitate a parking problem in even lower-density neighborhoods.

But that’s not the issue here: these homeowners are issuing a parking restriction with the hopes that motorists with will think it’s a valid, official sign.  They’re staking a claim on a chunk of the shoulder of the road in front of their houses, for which they wish to restrict others.  It’s not enforceable.  Any attempt to summon parking enforcement or a towing company would get an eye-roll.  Homeowners can’t craft their own on-street parking restriction; it’s a public right-of-way.  Nonetheless, especially in suburbia, where on-street parking tends to be slightly less prevalent than older urban neighborhoods, homeowners often like to push their luck to see what they can achieve.  But what about this street would make it a “FIRE LANE”?

Does it just sound more legit than no explanation whatsoever?  If this were true, wouldn’t a yellow stripe along the street’s entire curb (adjacent to all homes) apply just as well?  Whichever neighbor posted the sign (or perhaps both) made up the idea of a fire lane, but it sounds enforceable and might scare people from parking there….except, as the photo above indicates, none of the other neighbors have restrictions on their adjacent on-street parking due to a “fire lane”.

Such homegrown signage isn’t uncommon, and frankly, many examples do a better job of making it look official than this one.  But the folks who posted this made one other fatal mistake:

They tacked the sign on a utility pole!  Sure, it’s convenient.  However, when Public Works departments install the red-on-white (restricted) or green-on-white (permitted) signs, they affix them to their own metal poles.  The wooden pole in question here belongs to the local electric company, and, if the County of Fairfax (where unincorporated Springfield is located) were to pin its signs on electric poles, it would comprise a collision of public and private interest which, while seemingly innocuous, opens either party to abuse or litigation.  After all, if the local government slapped street signs onto utility poles, could a utility company use the height of a street light to elevate its wires by draping them atop?  Yes, utility companies can and do (and must) build their poles in the yards of private residences; the notion of utility easements gives them this relief from the otherwise absolute freedoms that private property protections promise.  But that doesn’t mean a utility company can start boring a hole for an underground cable right in the middle of a landowner’s yard, six feet from the front door.  The utility easement articulates an extremely limited territory, exempting private property claims for a sole infrastructural function.

After assessing all these competing interests, a final question remains: why hasn’t the utility company asked the homeowners to take the sign down?  It certainly would be within Dominion Energy’s rights.  It may be that the company has very little need to come down this anonymous street in Springfield and hasn’t noticed.  It may also be that a utility company has bigger fires to put out than a sign.  The attempt to impose on-street parking restrictions doesn’t faze a electric conglomerate so much.  It’s not that different from the “LOST DOG” or “BABYSITTER NEEDED” or “GARAGE SALE” signs that people tack to utility poles; they’re usually ephemeral and utility companies are too big to care.

This quiet residential street in Springfield manifests a collision of interests after all, but it’s between two private entities: the homeowner(s) and the utility company.  The local law enforcement would have a genuine case to respond to this: not so much the sign tacked to the pole but the assertion that it articulates.  After all, a private landowner (or two) is staking claim on a chunk of the public right-of-way.  If multiple people called to complain, it might prompt someone from the Fairfax County Police Department to intervene.  But in a county of 1.1 million people (the post populous in all of Virginia), they have bigger fish to fry too.  My guess is the only time this becomes a minor issue is Sunday mornings, when a church directly across the street has services that might compel people to park on the street out of convenience, even though the church has a parking lot.

I’m leaving the church’s identity anonymous along with the street name.  I’m not trying to tattle on these people.  I just happened to notice it.  I don’t really care.  And, to exhaust an already overused idiom, I have other things on my plate.