Wayfinding Program Shows the Trouble of Capital Thinking

By Eric Richardson
Published: Wednesday, June 13, 2007, at 02:50PM

Growing Older Eric Richardson [Flickr]
Historic Downtown Ed Fuentes [Flickr]

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES —

In what seems a bit to be ancient history on Downtown’s timeline, the first of the wayfinding signage went up just a bit over two years ago. The Downtown LA Walks program represented an ambitious attempt to help pedestrians navigate Downtown. It had some issues – ok, a lot of issues – but on the whole it was a noble effort. A lot of people complained, and fixes were made.

Two years later and the topic has largely died down. If only that meant the issues were gone…

The photo at right shows a wayfinding sign at 4th and Hill proudly proclaiming itself part of the “Historic Downtow.” Lest you think it was defaced or just wore off, here’s a photo by Jim Winstead showing the same “Downtow” sign in 2005.

More fundamentally, though, the wayfinding maps that were part of the program are falling farther and farther out of date. The photo at left shows a part of one map installed at 8th & Figueroa. The “Hyatt Regency” features prominently, and the DASH A still runs south of 7th. The Hyatt, of course, has been a Sheraton since May of 2005. The DASH A now takes a right at 7th and has done so for quite a while.

The core problem is one of planning. 100% of the budget for this project was spent up-front. It was put into design and manufacture, with no thought given to ongoing maintenance. How much longer until the inaccuracies just become too much and the signs simply need to come down? Downtown changes constantly, and these maps sitting on the sidewalk do not.

Right photo by Ed Fuentes.



Comments

1
Dan in LA writes:

There was a sign on Baldwin in Arcadia for a year or so that said;

Los Angeles 11

Arboretum 9

Next Right 10

OK, I thought “LA is 11 miles away, an arboretum may be 9 miles away, but “Next Right”??? I drove past that thing for months before I figured out that numbers were LETTER COUNTS! Evidently one department charges the other per letter, on the far right side of the form is the count for billing purposes. It must have been the sign makers first day on the job…

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 08:54 AM
2
colemonkee writes:

I often tell people that I live “downtow”, but only get weird looks back. Until now I just thought that people didn’t know enough about “downtow”, but now I know better. Perhaps I have been reading the signs too much…

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 10:28 AM
3
Nic Cha Kim writes:

That sign needs to be removed right away. Downtown misspelled is unacceptable.

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 12:06 PM
4
Bert Green writes:

Dash D runs south of 7th, it’s the DASH A you mean which now turns at 7th.

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 12:56 PM
5
Eric Richardson writes:

Oops. Good catch Bert. Fixed.

# on Jun.14.2007 AT 01:10 PM

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