Recently I was bemoaning the lack of innovation in government. However, the Engineering Department of the City of the Victoria have shown me up. They’ve found an inventive use for those ubiquitous traffic control boxes you see on lamp and traffic light posts. In high pedestrian traffic areas, they’ve pasted neighbourhood maps on them. The maps wrap around three sides of the box, identifying areas of interest (as well as, interestingly, the city’s URL).
What a great idea. Not only do they use existing visual real estate (avoiding the need for other street-level maps), but it’s a really cheap, low-tech solution to graffiti. As a guy who spent two sweltering summers across the street from the pictured box, at the busiest Tourism Information Centre in the country, I appreciate any non-human assistance for tourists.
I was going to include a quote from this PDF on the city’s website, but it’s been secured to prevent cutting and pasting. They may be inventive, but they’re also freakin’ paranoid down at City Hall.
UPDATE: I may be giving the municipality too much credit here. As Cheryl points out in the comments, these maps actually come from The Rock Solid Foundation, a group of police officers in Victoria that provides young people “with positive solutions to violence, threats, intimidation and aggressive behaviour.” Well, Victoria at least gets credit for permitting Rock Solid to implement the maps.
There are photos after the jump:
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I noticed these a few months ago — the first one I saw was on Government and Fisgard (across from the Gate of Harmonious Interest) and I was stunned by the common sense of it all, too.
The anti-grafitti decals started in Esquimalt on mailboxes and are done through Rock Solid. Most of the decals are kind of mediocre art, but the maps are a great idea.
big deal
Yes it is a big deal. Common sense and good ideas actually implemented by the City of Victoria. Who’da thunk it?
A wonderful piece of inventiveness. Has Victoria patented the idea. If they can it would also help the city revenues. Rick Hills
It’s a great idea, but I doubt it’s sufficiently innovative to merit a patent.
Very cool
Multi-purposed things like this are definitely efficient, saving duplication.
for the sake of balance, i like these AND i like grafitti. maps like this connect people to where they are, just like really good graf. and maps help people find places, just like really memorable graf. “yeah, the bar is just down the street from that mural with the dragon.” you can like public art and still be civic-minded, y’know 🙂
I love this idea, to tell the truth. I’m a pedestrian, in the purest sense. I don’t drive at all.
The only way to make this better would be to sneak low-energy bluetooth map transmitters into each box, siphoning a negligable amount of city power and purveying a free city-approved tourist map and possible sites agenda. Then, as you walk by it, you could sync to the map in the closest box like a cheap in-city GPS for anyone that is trying to find their way around.
Then again, I’ve always felt graffitti should be invited in some areas too. For instance: http://www.neonsight.com/gallery/komposition/
I saw a lot of good graffiti in my home town growing up, then again, I also saw a lot of lost tourists.
I live in Amsterdam, Netherlands and I think they should do that here. Very cool idea.
Apparently somebody thought to put city maps on storm drains, as in this picture.
http://www.drainspotting.com/view_photo.php?photoid=144&large
Brilliant!
I love these maps. For tourists, they are great. Walking around downtown our visitors can find out quickly where they are and see where they want to go. The ubiquity of the maps is key to their usefulness. Way to go Rock Solid.
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