In recent months I have come to notice a number of newly-painted parking lots in which the parking spaces were delineated with green paint. All such lots were within Orange County, California (as opposed to LA County, where I spend much more time), but not (I don’t think) within a single city. I think I’ve noticed this in both Irvine and Costa Mesa, but I can’t be certain about that.
I was very recently in a lot which had been resurfaced since I’d last been there. The old lines were white; the new ones are green.
On black tarmac, green lines somewhat harder to see than white. They’re still visible, of course, but I don’t know why one would deliberately choose a color that was less visible without some accompanying benefit. I suspect that green lines will need to be repainted more frequently, as it seems they’ll stand up to less wear before becoming truly impossible to see.
I have tried and failed to think of a motivation for using green lines, but I am observing it enough that I suspect it’s as a result of some local law. I’ve tried a Google search, but came up with nothing.
Has this been noticed anywhere else? Is it a result of some change in laws/codes in OC, or is it just some new trend? Are there alleged benefits to green over white?
Around here, (San Francisco) green curbs denote short-term parking - typically 10-15 minutes. I could understand a section of a lot being devoted to “run in and grab the mail/dry cleaning” spots, but not an entire lot.
The general curb color coding:
Blue = handicapped
Green = short term
Yellow, yellow/black = commercial loading (downtown, they added signs that you need at least six tires on the ground to qualify - ie: you gotta be in a truck.
Red = NEVER
Yep, the entire lot. It really does look strange to me.
Handicapped spaces are still marked in blue paint, and fire zones are marked by painting the curbs red. All other parking spaces, though, are done in green.
The most recent example I mentioned above has a McDonald’s in the shopping center. All of the spaces near the McD’s have a large golden-arches “M”, done in yellow, painted in the center of each spot. This lot is mostly for an office complex, with the McD’s off in one corner.
The other green-painted lots I’ve noticed have been retail strip malls, I believe.
The OC municipal code is here. I searched on parking and found all sorts of interesting facts, like that spaces have to be at least 9 feet wide and 18 feet long.
A number of studies recently done in the transportation industry and by standards bodies have shown that for many road safety purposes, green is the most noticable colour if you want drivers to “see” and take note of things. So it may have come out of that - maybe they’re producing green road paint because it stands out more.
In fact, a study we did a few years back suggested that if you wanted to completely redesign the school bus to maximize safety, starting from scratch, you’d paint it lime green, not orange. However, they kept it orange (or “School bus yellow” or whatever the official word is) because that colour has been used for so long that the public recognizes it, and the recognition’s worth more than the slight improvement in colour would be.
Re: 9’ x 18’ parking stalls – That is a typical standard parking stall dimension. Eight feet is acceptable in some areas, but that actually starts getting tight. Many places have a 20 foot depth.
Re: Lime green coloring – RickJay is correct about lime green being more observable. A number of critical signs, such as School Zone or Pedestrian Crossing in the US are allowed in lime green. I’ve seen fire engines that color as well, and England has had it for safety vests (worn by people working while exposed to traffic) for years.
Re: The OP – Sorry, I haven’t a clue why they’re doing it.
That’s the standard in most North American zoning codes.
Many zoning codes written in the 1970s include regulations for compact car parking spaces with smaller dimensions. Since compact car parking is usually abused – for instance, Hummers and Ford Excursions parking in the spaces – few new codes include compact car parking requirements.
<evil giggle> I love coming across a huge car in a compact space when the cars on the drivers side have pulled out. I will let MrAru out of the car and pull dead center into my space instead of scootching over to give the typical amount of room between cars. I can’t help it if I am parked legally and they can’t open the driver’s side door=)
Of course I will call base security if I see it on the submarine base, they love giving out parking tickets=)
It is possible, I suppose, that they were aiming for higher visibility. If they were, it is my opinion that they missed badly. The lines are not a lime green at all - the shade of green is actually pretty dark. On black tarmac, I think they’re far less visible than white.
So much less visible that it had crossed my mind that it was an attempt to be (for some reason) more subtle with the striping, in a stereotypical “weird tree-huggin’ California way.” From a distance, new parking lots now look like unlined expanses of black tarmac. What doesn’t make sense about my theory is that I can’t see why this would be in any way more “natural” than a brightly lined lot. However, decisions made on wacky grounds are not unheard of around here, so I’m not ready to rule that out just yet.
I did another web search, and I came up with ONE hit which makes an oblique reference to the green being a requirement. This newsletter of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum (which is in Newport Beach, CA) states:
Now, I am a bit confused, as the Irvine Company is more deeply involved with city planning in Irvine than in adjacent Newport Beach, but the exact nature of the relationship and just what it encompasses is unclear to me.
I suppose it could be that the Irvine Company owns all of those “greened” parking lots, and has decided (for whatever reason) that all lots on its property are to become green-striped. I did a bit of poking on their website, and came up with this tidbit which makes that sound likely:
So they probably do own all of that land, and thus make the rules (so to speak).
If that’s the explanation, then the question of why green stripes would be preferred is still open.
Does this area have strict parking enforcement?
If so, could low-visibility lines be an effort at boosting ticket revenue?
Just an off-the-top-of-my-head idea.
If anyone cares, the minimum (and thus most common) dimensions for parking spaces in the UK is 2.4 x 4.8m ( approx. 7’ 11" x 15’ 9").
Unless they are ‘parallel’ spaces, where they then become 2.4 x 6.0m.
I’m sure that makes quite a big difference to parking space numbers over a large site.
I test drove a car yesterday, and when I did my standard “parking lot maneuverability” test, I took particular notice of the parking spaces, with this thread in mind. The car I drove was a Ford Escape, which has a length of approximately 14.5 feet, and a width of about 5.75 feet.
There was maybe a foot of extra depth after I parked. When I pulled back out, I ran perpendicular to the spots, to “measure” by the length of the car. If I were to park in the spots sideways, I’d have taken up over 2 spots, which bears out a width of about 6 feet. There’s no way it was 9 x 20, that much I’m sure of. This was a standard parking lot at Home Depot.
