Signage SOP

I have finally found someone at Sydney Olympic Park who can get things fixed.  The SOP website is terrible as far as finding out who works there and what they do.  The switchboard is not much better.

It's nice to see that they have seen the light and will install vandal-resistant signage to replace a wrecked sign.  However, I would have preferred it if they had figured that out on their own. Why does it require input from an outsider to fix the bleeding obvious?

Installing graffiti or vandal resistant signage is just one of the many costs of vandalism that the taxpayer has to bear.  It annoys me when people say "It's art".  It's not art if it destroys the function of the object upon which it is sprayed - in this case, a map.  If you can't read the map, you've destroyed it, and money has to be spent fixing or replacing it.

Lack of common sense

Frankly, I feel like a dill for having to write this letter - but someone had to do it.

17 March 2009

Mr David Young

General Manager, Operations & Sustainability

Sydney Olympic Park Authority

7 Figtree Drive

Sydney Olympic Park NSW 2127

Dear Mr Young

Damage to park signage in Bicentennial Park

I refer to signage near the Victoria Road entrance to Bicentennial Park.

A number of structures around the Victoria Road entrance were defaced with graffiti in late 2008.  Whilst the graffiti has long been removed, several signs that were damaged beyond recognition have not been replaced.  The photo above shows one of them.

May I suggest that if the removal of graffiti also removes much of the information on the sign, then the sign should be replaced.  It’s not much use to visitors in its current condition.  A nearby sign was damaged so severely, it was removed – and it hasn’t been replaced yet either.  It might also be an idea to coat the signs so that graffiti can be removed without destroying the sign.

Yours sincerely

It doesn't affect my life if the sign is stuffed - I have been to the park plenty of times, and I know my way around.  However, leaving the signage in this condition will massively inconvenience first time users of the park.  

I can understand someone being told to go and remove the graffiti, and saying "Oops" as they discovered that metho removes graffiti and signage in equal measures.  What I can't comprehend is how someone could then leave it in this condition without doing whatever has to be done to get it fixed.

It also makes me wonder how often management gets out of their offices and actually walks around the park that they are supposed to be managing - this signage has been like this since before Christmas.

World's worst cleaning job

Bicentennial Park, Homebush.  I went past this sign again a few days ago, and a second attempt had been made at removing the graffiti. It was somewhat cleaner, but most of the sign itself was scrubbed off along with the graffiti.  A sign without useful information on it is somewhat pointless.

A better job has been done on the sculptures at the gates to the park - the graffiti around the base has been properly removed.

Council has also been past this water tank recently to remove a large amount of graffiti that was visible from the street.

Come to Sydney Olympic Park - and wreck it

The Victoria Avenue entrance to Sydney Olympic Park (or Bicentennial Park as it is also known) goes through a subway under a motorway.  When I went through it this week, the walls of the subway had large graffiti murals sprayed on them.  As did the gates to the park, which are closed nightly.

There are two odd looking sculptures out the front, and both of them had graffiti around the base.

Some of the signage just inside the gates was unreadable because the removal of graffiti had also removed all the text and maps!

A few examples of the stuff sprayed in the subway.

One of the signs just inside the park.

The good news is all this has been reported.  As I went through the park, I kept an eye out for an official looking office building, and when I found one, I went up to the front desk and let them know about it.  It turns out that the office that I went to was the wrong one - it was some sort of parklands organisation that rents space from the Sydney Olympic Park Authority, but the woman I spoke to didn't like the idea of graffiti within the park anymore than I did, so she said, "I know just who to report this to", and she went off to ring them up.

The bad news is that all this graffiti was sprayed around the front gate - including on the front gate - and someone from the Park Authority opens and closes those gates every day.  My question is this - had they noticed the graffiti, and if they had, did they bother to report it?  

I suspect that the answer is "no", otherwise that graffiti would not have been there when I went past.

The other bad news is that a horticultural contractor was working about 50 metres from this graffiti - you could easily see it from where they parked their vehicles - and it appeared that none of them viewed it as their problem.  I have seen that company in that location before - they take care of the garden beds at the BBQ area near the entrance to the park.  That's the problem with contractors who are brought in to do a specific job - they only care about what they are there to take care of, and don't take a holistic view of the park - which is an enormous shame.