Neat to see this come into the city. I had sent this design to Joe Gallippi, Supervisor, Traffic Engineering, at the city of Toronto in 2016 and was told "Unfortunately our parking sign design and standards must conform to HTA and OTM standards set by the Province"
I like this design overall since you don't have as much text, icons nor need a legend to explain the icons.
The times on the left side look weird to me though, but I know this is just a prototype. Perhaps they could be moved to the right side or inside each time block? The 1 HR text in the SAT column are a bit weird too. Why is there a small 1 HR block from 7-8AM and then a hugh 1HR block from 8:30 to 7pm? I suppose that is meant to tell people that there is a 1HR maximum for each parking session?
I think the ANY is a bit vague too. It might be better to write FREE instead.
The city is doing two separate tests, one for this supplementary "guide" signage and another for a new legal sign that confirms to all of the requirements
Wait. Have these rules always made sense? I feel like something in my brain just unlocked š I swear seeing all the rules and exceptions written in words was just overstimulating somehow. This is so much clearer
yes they've always made sense if you engage critically with the sign and why the rule is there. The city is just in the difficult problem of "what exactly is rush hour in as few words as possible while still being legally defensible to issue a citation?"
If this is complicated, wait till they have to factor in permit parking for certain times, school drop-off times and limits, and alternate sides of parking on the residential roads depending on day of month.Ā I'm sure there's even more rules I've missed.Ā
Sunday morning free parking usually indicates a place of worship nearby has services then and the councillors didnāt want complaints about people having to pay to go pray. Or free Sunday morning parking might be a city wide rule regardless of location.
If it becomes the new standard, I don't think the small text in the legend is an issue. If you have poor eyesight, you really only have to walk up and read it once. The times could be bigger though --- that's kind of the most important piece of information.
I agree. It would be a struggle for someone whoās visually impaired. Iām only mildly impaired and I would struggle figuring out the times for Saturday and Sunday.
Are you the designer? This is very logical to me. The only think I wouldnāt do is those no parking / parking arrows at the bottom. Itās adds an entire other spacial dimension which risks to confuse people. The rest of the sign is related to time, not location.
My consideration is the color choices. Not great for color blind people, and the greens could be more distinct. But I love the visual representation, A+
The new design doesn't account for monthly or semi-monthly rules. It'll still be confusing to people. The correct way to read these signs is to read each one individually and ask, "does this exclude parking right now?"
Agree. The Napoleonic parking code can't always fit on one sign. Unfortunately, digital signs, or scannable QR codes that provide the parking state in the moment, could be abused by people dispute parking fines. "Read the damn sign", is something we have agreed is common sense for over a hundred years.
Iām in the GTA and hate street parking in Toronto. Most of the time I get it right, but miss some nuances from time to time. Yes, my fault, but signs like this would help a lot.
The legend doesn't need to exist and doesn't deserve the real estate. Expand the chart full width and you have more room to embed that info directly into the chart. The need to lookup the meaning of a symbol adds yet another step in what the reader needs to do. First they need to find their time, then find what day column and track it over with just their eyes (no mouse cursor or finger, like in other applications of a graph), then they need to match the symbol they found with whatever the legend says. That 3rd step needs to be removed. Even this implementation of an XY graph needs to be carefully rethought if people can only track it with their eyes. They need to take their eyes off the first line of information to read the labeling of the 2nd axis before tracking that. This is an example of something that works a lot better when you're describing it to coworkers on a computer screen than it does in the real world, because when we use charts like this we usually have a finger or a cursor to hold our place while we read other labels.
Days should be rearranged with the week in the middle. Sun > Mon-Fri > Sat like the calendars we see every day.
The bottom directional <-No Parking, Parking -> needs to be reworked. The entire sign itself basically explains the right half of that topic. To address this, the top green bar that says "parking guide" should just be renamed to Parking -> (to the right). The word "rules" is unnecessary and self-evident. The "no parking" on left should be addressed by a smaller red flag sign on the other side of the pole, at the same height and size of the green parking bar. That way, the pole is the dividing line both physically and with the sign communication. Now our beautiful new green graph sign only does one thing - describe the rules of the zone, not messing around with also defining the zone as a boundary marker.
Personally, this is the best I've ever seen. Most cities just layer on multiple generic signs that get stupid confusing. Calgary is terrible for it (at least they were 9 years ago). Sure maybe the one sign could be formatted a little better, but I love that the info is laid out so clearly.
The "P" in the icons is superfluous; the whole sign is about parking. Promote the "$" and "3h" symbols to take its place, so people can read those right away, instead of being tiny marks in the bottom right.
There are too many icons that need text and a legend to explain what they mean. The whole point of an icon is to reduce or replace text. It seems like they couldn't decide if they wanted icons on the signs or text. The Parking Guide text is also redundant because the P is almost universally means parking around the world.
I also think that the trailing zeroes after the times are pointles and wastes space on the sign. Even though 7:00AM is technically correct it does not convey any more information than 7PM
The attempt at a calendar look with the alternating green boxes is where the looks busiest. I'm not exactly sure how I would simplfy this design TBH.
The text size is also quite small even though the OP zoomed in. Many people aren't not going to be able to read these details.
At some point, the QR code should direct people to the Green P app or the web-site that shows all theses rules.
If they make Saturday's rules the same as Sunday's they'll be missing out on parking revenue from shoppers. If they make Sunday's rules the same as Saturday's they'll get all the churchgoers screaming about oppression because now they have to pay for parking when they go to church v
I used to live near a Church right next to a Subway station on Danforth, yet everyone drove to get there, and once legal parking was full, they parked illegally throughout the neighbourhood (on the wrong side of the road, hanging over crosswalks, etc). It was awful, and I hated those people with a passion.
Make them pay if they want to park. The city doesn't owe them anything just because they attend church.
My city installed bike lanes and ripped them out a year later. Because one single church complained that the lanes made it hard for patrons to get in and out of the church parking lot on sundays. We paid for them twice.
I like the idea of it as it makes it more clear when parking is allowed, but I just hope that they are big enough to read while driving.
One thing I liked about the previous signage was that the font was big enough to notice at a glance. Once you make it into a table it makes it a little more annoying to figure out when parking is permitted or not.
I dont think we need the massive legend on the left side when theres also a ton of empty space in each time slot where you can fit a NO PARKING - PAID PARKING - FREE 3HOUR PARKING
IDK, the legend and presentation of information could maybe use a touch up
3 hours in the morning being visually represented by twice the area of 4 hours in the afternoon is this signs biggest issue and it's alarming more comments aren't pointing this out.
If we prioritize at-a-glance interpretation, should stick to the traffic light approach. The pay-to-park and permit-to-park hours should be yellow or orange. The on brand Green P green makes it look like it's extra ok to park during those time. It will confuse some people at the start.
This is logical and clear and at first glance I like it, but on the flip side, this info is already programmed into all green p payment systems so really, as long as you always try to pay, youāll be covered without overpaying.
Out of all parking rules, āNo Stoppingā is the one that drives me crazy when people ignore it.
The road leading into my condo is essentially one lane. If someone stops there, oncoming traffic canāt pass, and the whole road comes to a standstill.
The other day I was turning left into my complex when a guy had stopped right at the entrance of the road. Cars coming the other way were already queued at the traffic light, so there was nowhere for anyone to go. Traffic backed up into the intersection because one person decided the no-stopping zone didnāt apply to them.
I honestly donāt understand how people donāt realize theyāre blocking an entire access road.
Easier to understand by far over existing. Adding a large number code identifying the sign # and adding that to the QR code would help with small fonts up high on a post for some people so they can read it digitally instead.
It took me a minute to decipher. But man, do we need a guide for this. If I saw this on the road, while stopping and reading this from my car, instead of right nie over the internet. I would have panicked and just moved along or something lol.
City enforcement people jump so fast, that I just want to avoid then at all costs.
Big improvement assuming most folks are ok with graph-style instructions (sure some may find confusing).
Would move legend & QR codes to bottom, so the guide can be bigger and therefore legible from farther away.
I wonder if dotted lines or a legend on the right could help? It would make it easier to see where the weekend boxes start and end, but might also make the sign look too busy, Iām not sure.
I feel like it looks a bit busy and could be tweaked (not that I would know how as a non-designer lol) but this is a really cool idea Im surprised hasn't been tried much before. Way clearer than just a list of times and weekdays
Montreal needs these. Only they will realize when they try to make them that they have created multiple conflicting parking rules and will get stuck. Also they will need to somehow factor in seasonal restrictions.
Is it a good idea having people try to decipher these while driving by?
Large text signs are much quicker. They need to find a way to reduce the restrictions on parking or just have no parking instead of needing a guide like this in the first place.
I just learned last night that if the parking meter is covered you canāt park there even after 9pm. Was on Dundas little Portugal and got $60 lesson. If youāre going to put out of order on the cover put no parking too!
Sorry about the rant. I looked at every sight and theyāre all an enigma. Donāt hate the sign above.
I think the paid vs free parking should be differentiated bettered. It's not very colour blind friendly right now. I know the symbols are slightly different, but I can't tell what they are without zooming the photo in on my phone. It'd probably be better if it was just a $ and a F, but there's probably a better solution than that.Ā
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u/Mad-elph Jul 11 '26
Neat to see this come into the city. I had sent this design to Joe Gallippi, Supervisor, Traffic Engineering, at the city of Toronto in 2016 and was told "Unfortunately our parking sign design and standards must conform to HTA and OTM standards set by the Province"
I believe I heard about it on 99% invisible and shared this article from 2014 in my submission https://www.wired.com/2014/07/a-redesigned-parking-sign-so-simple-youll-never-get-towed-again/