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Transportation

Here’s Why Parking Signs Are Coming Down In Houston

You'll probably see a lot fewer parking signs in downtown Houston in about a year. Houston Mayor Annise Parker and the Downtown Management District say they'll get rid of a confusing mish-mash of signs and replace them with more streamlined, simplified parking signage.

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If you’ve been downtown lately, you know what we’re talking about. There are about 120 different types of parking signs right now, some on the same pole with confusing information about whether you can park there or not.

The city says it plans to take down nearly 5,800 parking signs and replace them with far fewer signs that are easier to understand. This is Mayor Annise Parker. 

“It’s going to take us about a year to get all the signs down and replaced, but you’re going to have a cleaner block face, it’s going to be easier to figure out what you can and cannot do. And as we’re doing it, we’re going to standardize the requirements across the city gradually.”

Parker says she hopes the new, simplified signage actually means less parking ticket revenue for the city.

“There are lots and lots of free public activities and non-profits that do festivals downtown. We want people who come downtown for a festival to have a great time at the festival and go back and find that their car is still in the same place they left it. Hear me; my goal is to write fewer parking tickets in downtown Houston.”

The old signs will be used for a city art project.

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Jack Williams

Executive Producer for Daily News

Jack is back in Houston after some time away working in public radio and television in Lincoln, Nebraska. Before leaving for the Midwest, he worked in various roles at Houston Public Media from 2000-2016, including reporting, hosting and anchoring. Jack has also worked in commercial news radio in Houston, Austin...

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