Hacking the Highways

cindy writes "LA artist Richard Ankrom got fed up with the terrible signage on the Harbor Freeway. Rather than wait for CalTrans to do something about it, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He carefully made additional signage and added it to an existing freeway sign. The results were so good that no one, including CalTrans, noticed for months! The LA Times has an article including some of the video shot by the artist to document his "crime.""

Comments

Re:I don't get it....

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

You'd think that the people in charge of the signs would notice that there was an addition that hadn't been authorized.

Yes, because certainly everyone in CalTrans in charge of signage undoubtedly passes by that exact stretch of road every day... I don't this even counts as clever unless he can document that the sign had been seen by anyone competent to have ordered a change. Reading the article I didn't get any sense that this was some long, drawn-out crusade to get a sign put up, where "the Man" dragged his feet and stuck it to the little guy. No faceless bureaucrat decreeing, "No, you shall always be confused that that interchange, for Policy has made it so".

The guy saw something that CalTrans hadn't noticed or hadn't gotten around to. He took it on himself to fix the problem as he saw it. Kudos for the initiative... but it ain't art.