San Francisco fights truck graffiti with paint jobs
The San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) has started a campaign to eliminate graffiti on commercial vehicles with its “Clean and Green Trucks” pilot program. Under the city’s plan, owners of graffiti-covered trucks registered in San Francisco can apply to have their vehicles painted green by DPW if they agree to keep graffiti off their vehicles in the future.
The “Clean and Green Trucks” program will be made available to 15 truck owners in San Francisco to study costs, effectiveness and interest. If successful, the city may expand the program or fund other treatments to rid the city of large, vandalized trucks that are often parked in San Francisco neighborhoods, creating blight and prompting neighborhood complaints. “We want to keep our neighborhoods beautiful, so we have to stay out in front with new ideas and programs that show results,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We’re partnering with artists, we’ve set up straightforward systems to report graffiti through 311, and now we are focusing on tagged trucks.”
DPW chose the color “Transformer Green” because it is has been effective in deterring graffiti on utility poles, trash receptacles, retaining walls, and other public property where it is used. The dark green color will replace white truck walls that are often seen as open canvases to graffiti vandals. To date, five trucks have been painted, and the program still has 10 opportunities for truck owners to sign on.
Funded with $15,000 from the City Administrator’s Community Challenge Grant Program, the “Clean and Green” Trucks Program follows two recent initiatives sponsored by DPW and the San Francisco Arts Commission also aimed at graffiti prevention: “StreetsmARTS,” in which urban artists work with private property owners to create art and make property less likely to be vandalized; and the “Where Art Lives” program, which educates students about the differences between community art and vandalism.
Learn more information about the San Francisco DPW’s anti-graffiti programs.
