I was driving through Dallas yesterday, and I saw the usual tags in the usual places. Street signs, buildings, and billboards. Then I saw one that just blew me away. The highway sign on I35E was tagged. The sign was over a six lane interstate highway. There was no catwalk or bridge nearby. So I was struck dumb. How the hell did the tag get done? I could imagine two possibilities. The first, gang tagger A gets a cherry picker, or a pick up truck with a long ladder, stops on the interstate, lifts himself up to the height of the sign, tags it, descends, and gets away without the police catching him.
Possibility number two, the sign was tagged before it got put up. If that was the case though, how would the gang know that they control the territory that the sign is in? The other question would be why would someone put up a sign that has been tagged instead of clean the paint off and then put the sign up?
I had difficulty finding a picture but most overhead TxDOT signs are mounted on a truss-like sign bridge. Here’s an example of a standard drawing. (PDF) If this link doesn’t work, go to this page and open up any “overhead sign bridge” example. (use the PDF, the .dgn file is for Microstation, a CAD program). I don’t think it’d be particularly difficult to climb up the backside on the truss part.
In addition, you may not have noticed but almost all overhead signs have a small catwalk on the front that supports the illumination. See here. (PDF again, if it doesn’t work, scroll down the link above to “Mercury Vapor Sign Light. Fixture”) The catwalk is so the illumination can be maintained without using a cherry picker and closing down lanes.
OK, here’s a pic of an overhead sign without illimunation. You can see the truss structure that would be easy to scale. This one has illumination and you can see the catwalk. In either case, I don’t htink it’d be difficult (not safe, but not hard) for a determined teenager to get up there.
I guess I did not account for the determination of those involved, but someone would still have to stop on the side of the highway and scale the catwalk. Do the police really not see that?
Speaking as a guy with some extralegal experience in the long-ago past, I can tell you that this would be an easy one. In this case, lookouts can be posted on either side of the highway to check for approaching cops. A cellphone call is all it takes to alert the tagger, and by the time Mr. Po-po arrives, our heroic spray can artiste has long since hidden/departed.
Most tags are not done to mark gang territory, it’s just taggers trying to earn “respect” by getting the most/highest/most dangerous locations marked. If you tag a sign on the ground, then it’s hoisted 50 feet in the air, you got the great location without any of the work.
TxDoT doesn’t usually put up vandalized equipment though; in fact, we had a construction project in Austin suffer delays partly because the construction material for the bridges kept getting tagged and had to be replaced or repaired before being put up.
