North End First to Get Boston’s New Digital Signs

You’ve seen them on the highways, and now digital parking and traffic signs will be coming to the North End. As the first Boston neighborhood to receive digital signs, the effort will be funded with $500,000 from the city’s budget, according to the Boston Herald, with installation by the end of the summer. If things go well, the rest of the city should receive digital signs in phases through 2019.

The maze of parking and street signs on North End streets can create a puzzling experience for both residents and visitors. Last year, zones were created on Hanover Street to help organize commercial, visitor and resident parking.

In cooperation with a the company StreetParkd, the city is creating a database of street and parking restrictions that will be accessible on mobile phone map apps. Digital signs will also be posted to show real-time rules.

The city’s experimentation with street changes has not always gone well in the North End. A car share program that took away resident parking was met with opposition as was the recent replacement of brick sidewalks with concrete. And, of course, the city’s multi-year construction effort for one of the city’s first cycle tracks has been problematic. Perhaps it is timely that the news of digital signs comes during a week when a construction update is planned in response to resident  and business complaints about street chaos.