Parking signs being stolen around town
People are helping themselves to those temporary orange no-parking signs, then using them to reserve parking spots later for their personal convenience. Meanwhile contractors are having to pay for signs that have been stolen.
Would it work to attach a tracker tile to these things?
Blork 13:15 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
That would never work. For one thing, you’d need hundreds of tracker tiles, and people would easily find them and dispatch them into a snowbank. ← And yeah, I’m sure you were kidding, but for the sake of the first-degree readers….
Ephraim 16:19 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
I’ve even said this to a city councillor. Those signs should require a sticker/code, like from the P-Touch with the permit number attached. A permit that any citizen can check online, to ensure that they are valid.
We’ve had companies and film crews put up the sign on the street. When we call the city, it takes a while to find the permit. Often they have exceeded their permit. For example, in one case they paid for 5 spots on the western side of the street and have marked out 10 spots on both sides.
No permit number, no need to respect the sign. Make it easy enough for us to validate. And no permit, the city can remove the sign and keep it.
Ephraim 16:21 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
The reverse could also be true. Give each such sign a permanent number. When used for a permitted sign, assign that number to the permit. You can put in the sign number to verify it’s permit.
BTW, on my street, often people just move the sign. They just show up too often. And if you call and the city can’t find a permit… off it goes
steph 16:27 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
These thieves aren’t that clever, there’s some unspoken social rules in play here. If someone catches you doing this (which is very likely in our Montreal balconvilles), expect to get your car quietly keyed.
dhomas 16:57 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
I have a few neighbours that do this around my house. On two occasions, I’ve loaded up those signs in the trunk of my car and brought them to an active constructions site so they would be taken care of. This was after I opened tickets with the city (Montreal app) that got ignored.
JP 20:10 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
I had my car keyed once….I’m still not sure what I had done. But yeah, stealing and misusing those signs is a pretty crappy thing to do.
carswell 20:22 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
Haven’t seen any of those free-standing no parking signs in my ‘hood (UdeM) for years and only a few on main local arteries like Côte-des-Neiges. For a while, the borough was using posterboard signs attached to wood stakes that were stuck in the snow banks about to be removed (I believe they were just gobbled up by the snowblowers and carted away — not exactly ecological). Nowadays all I see are the orange boxes that are slipped onto the permanent parking signs. Wonder if any of them are stolen for personal use.