Signs, Maps to Guide Downtown Visitors

Aaron Aulenta sprinkles bread crumbs, so to speak.

His task: leaving a trail of nearly 700 signs and maps to create easy-to-follow paths for visitors lost in the maze of downtown Los Angeles.

The project, Downtown LA Walks, has taken two years, cost $2 million and involved hundreds of staff hours, all to help people not get lost.

Aulenta is a “wayfinder” -- an ancient concept that is literally about finding your way. He is working on the project that downtown officials are betting will help revitalize the area.

“It’ll help people get around, guide them to their destinations,” Aulenta said. Otherwise, “they’d probably wander aimlessly,” he said.

Carol Schatz, who heads two downtown business groups, knows the problem well. “People get lost downtown constantly,” she said. “It’s very confusing.”

Something as simple as making sure people don’t get lost, Schatz said, will entice more visitors, increase business and spur redevelopment.

A series of one-way streets and dead ends, hills, tunnels, and three freeways crisscrossing downtown make driving especially complicated, said Wayne Hunt of Hunt Designs in Pasadena, a project designer.

One wrong turn can force drivers into a seemingly never-ending struggle to figure out precisely where they are, Hunt said.

Strolling through Grand Central Market on a recent Saturday, Linda Temple and her daughter, Annie Sell, both of La Habra Heights, agreed.

Recounting one expedition to the Museum of Contemporary Art on Bunker Hill, Sell said construction near the freeway exit blocked their pre-planned route.

Without signs guiding them, the women were left to deduce their own path -- unsuccessfully.

“We continued to circle around and around,” Sell recalled.

Temple, who was driving that day, chimed in, “You know when you keep repeating the same thing, expecting a different outcome? We made four or five passes around the same block.”

Perhaps most annoying, they could see the museum from a distance. “Downtown L.A. became a labyrinth,” Temple said.

After about 20 minutes, they finally reached the museum.

Such stories are not uncommon, said Jason Garcia, one of more than a dozen purple-shirted “ambassadors” on hand 12 hours a day, seven days a week, helping lost people in the 65-block area of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Last year, the ambassadors, who are paid by the improvement district and receive training on recognizing the mannerisms of lost people, helped 36,000 people find their way.

Staffing a brochure-laden purple kiosk across from Grand Central Market, Garcia demonstrated how to spot the lost.

Casting a confused gaze and scanning the skyline, Garcia imitated the familiar pose of the lost.

“Sometimes people are so lost, they come up, stand here and ask, ‘Where’s Grand Central Market?’ ” Garcia said. “I have to tell them it’s right across the street.”

This is where wayfinding comes in. It’s been studied by academics for centuries, and its origin is rooted in human instinct for survival.

“If human beings didn’t know to find their way around, they wouldn’t have evolved ... to go out and search for food. If you can’t find your way back, you’re going to die,” said Janet Carpman of Carpman Grant Associates in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Researchers have long wondered how humans developed such skills and how they learn new ways of getting around. Some researchers even place humans -- like lab rats, but without cheese rewards -- into giant mazes.

In more recent years, wayfinding has become a design discipline, and wayfinders are increasingly being called upon to create systems using signs and maps like the downtown L.A. project for hospitals, college campuses and amusement parks.

Wayfinding is increasingly viewed as vital for economic survival because lost people equals lost business.

“As soon as people realize they are lost, their main goal is getting located again, not browsing around and spending money,” said Reginald G. Golledge, a wayfinding expert at UC Santa Barbara.

But if people are not lost, they feel secure and willing to wander and explore, Golledge said.

To encourage that, Jeff Corbin, whose Traverse City, Mich., wayfinding firm led the project, said a comprehensive sign system is necessary for downtown’s 350 blocks, more than 300 intersections and 30 freeway offramps.

(The project defines the downtown area as stretching from Chinatown on the north to the Coliseum on the south. The Harbor Freeway and Central Avenue roughly mark the western and eastern boundaries, respectively.)

As the signs point people in the right direction, Corbin said, they also will point out cool things to do.

Hunt, another project designer, said, “The signs also market what we would call unexpected destinations, impulse trips: ‘Oh, we didn’t know there was an artists district.’ ”

Designers working with downtown officials, businesses and residents identified 13 districts, creating a logo and designating a color for each.

For example, the jewelry district will be identified by a diamond ring and the color blue.

The goal was to make the districts as recognizable as New York City neighborhoods such as SoHo or Greenwich Village.

The signs will act as “bread crumbs” -- providing constant reassurance to pedestrians and drivers -- leading them to their destinations. Pedestrians consulting any of the more than 170 street corner maps will be able to see points of interest within a four-block radius.

The design process has been completed and all the signs could be up by next spring.

Aulenta, in charge of scattering the bread crumbs, recently stood on a busy downtown street inspecting a corner lamppost, where most of the signs will be affixed throughout the city.

So far, Aulenta estimated that he has seen more than 1,000 light poles. Along the way, he is often stopped by tourists asking for directions.