Parking lots lined using green paint

[brad_d]

Hmmm… It seems this has everybody mystified.

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:

In February the parking lot will be resurfaced. The Irvine Company has decided that all of their parking lots will be striped in green paint. So, don’t be confused thinking that the spaces are limited to 20 minutes parking. By the way, next time you fly out of John Wayne airport you might see if you could spot those green spaces.

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:

The Irvine Company is a 110-year-old, privately held company best known for the balanced, sustainable communities it has planned and developed on The Irvine Ranch® in Orange County, California.
<snip>
Irvine Ranch comprised 120,000 acres reaching 22 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean at Newport Beach to the edge of the Cleveland National Forest. Encompassing more than 185 square miles, the ranch represented nearly one-fourth of Orange County’s total land area. Today, at about 93,000 acres, the ranch represents nearly one-fifth of the county’s total land area and contains portions of six cities, including the entire City of Irvine. The Irvine Ranch also includes portions of the cities of Newport Beach, Tustin, Orange, Laguna Beach and Anaheim, plus unincorporated land in the County of Orange.

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.