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LA Finally Making a Database of All Its Parking Rules

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The city has plans to start building a digital inventory that could eventually become an app

Los Angeles has been exploring ways to improve its famously confusing array of parking information through better signage and improved tech for a while now, but a newly proposed plan adds an intriguing idea to the pile, setting the stage for a possible parking restriction information app down the road.

The LA City Council's Transportation Committee yesterday recommended using $1.1 million toward phase one of a project to collect information on parking regulations, signs, and curb paint throughout the city. Believe it or not, the city does not actually have a database of which parking restrictions correspond to which streets; this project, Code the Curb, will have someone going down each and every street to "take pictures or record each sign’s contents," reports City News Service.

When complete, the city will have a digital inventory with all the parking rules and signs up across the whole city, which they say could be used by the public to clear up the too-common confusion about whether or not you can park in a certain spot, and for how long; the database could also be used to create a handy, searchable app.

LA's got a lot of street to cover, and this first phase would be one of many. It's estimated that the whole project would take one or two years and cost between $4.4 and $5.6 million, but it's clearly necessary, since there is no "comprehensive database" of parking rules.

The Code The Curb project is one of a handful that's come from a group of motions by Councilmember Mike Bonin, who's working with the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group—a group started after some Angelenos pissed about parking tickets mobilized and got the attention of City Hall.