Even google didn't dare go up there: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8512481,-122.4911711,3a,75y,...
Granted you can hike up Sunrise trail from the next exit but it's a tough hill for the elderly. Friend of mine got one of those hard to remove stickers put on their car for taking her mother up there.
If you ask the city they'll spin crap but confirm that it's open to public when pushed for an answer. If you drive up there guaranteed someone will confront you and the police will show up soon after.
Taxpayer funded gated community for the politically connected.
I found this: http://sausalito.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_...
On page 2, there's a line that says, "Wolfback Ridge Road is a private road maintained by the Wolfback Ridge Association, a neighborhood homeowner’s association (see Exhibit R for Association information)"
I can't find exhibit R, but the person who sent it appears to be a resident of Wolfback Ridge, leading me to wonder how legit the info is.
I also doubt the Wolfback Ridge Association paid for the bridge over highway 101 that's exclusive to them. There are radio towers (SFO?) up there but you can access along the fire roads from Tennessee Valley.
Edit:
Found it, response from Director of Public Works:
Not as simple a question as you might think… Short answer is that a portion of Wolfback Ridge Road is publically-maintained. For purposes of hiking, you and anyone else can probably access from the State of California right-of-way (at US 101) to the trails at the top of the pass anytime and not have an issue. Vehicular access is restricted at certain times of the year by Sausalito PD – Fleet Week and the Fourth of July based on lack of parking, lack of adequate circulation and inadequate turn-around. If you want more legal details, let me know – I’m researching the area for a development application anyway…it may take awhile though.
They have a point regarding events but if you park where he suggests you'll run into issues.
http://www.marinmap.org/Planner/queryRM.aspx?PID=064-276-22
And there is the additional complication of no place to turn around at the end of the public road so for safety cars have been limited to not travel past the gate.
http://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/44...
http://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/12...
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:g9QMap...
Surprised that no-one would do this with recording equipment and then sue for unlawful arrest or whatever, or have they?
I thought about confronting the issue but figured I don't need to waste my time or money on such endeavors.
Example with photos from a race I did there in 2013: http://stevetursi.blogspot.com/2013/09/rr-san-francisco-50-m...
https://www.bing.com/mapspreview/?&cp=37.848938~-122.49187&l...
What an awesome view
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.8531329,-122.4934891/37.8...
What did they put on her car?
http://www.myparkingpermit.com/Parking-Violation-Stickers/No...
According to the law of the state of California, all beaches are public property. Of course, this gets a bit complicated when an individual owns the land in front of the beach. The people who buy houses in Malibu would, of course, prefer to have a private beach section. So they put up gates and hire security guards (illegally), block public parking spots (either physically or by putting up counterfeit "no parking" signs), etc. They've historically gotten away with it because the enforcement agency is underfunded and the enforcement process is expensive (a separate civil lawsuit for each offender). That may change soon though:
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-coastal-penalties-20140...
http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2015/10/deal_reportedly...
The real insult here is that the town had recently accepted federal funds ($40mm) to widen and improve the beach, so blocking access seemed a little unfair if not illegal. Additionally most of the houses near the beach are only occupied in the summer season. So really, who is a "resident" when many are really only there in the summer?
My initial reaction was how unreasonable it was for the developers to build such a fence to keep people out of their development. Then I noticed that there are no gaps in the fence and, on doing some research, found out that the fence is there to keep the house owners off of the beach!
I'd be a bit annoyed if I spent £1M on a house overlooking a lovely beach only to find that I'd have to walk/drive 8km or so to the other side of the fence...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mexico#Article...
So how does this work in relation to the de facto apartheid we have in Mexico, thanks to resorts? Same thing: the people with money make their own rules.
Edit: Never mind, upon further investigation, it seems that the public property is not defined by the constitution, but by other laws, and individuals can obtain certain temporary concessions to use it which roughly corresponds to leasing the land from the government:
http://mexicolaw.com/Lawinfo30.htm
http://www.eloscabos.gob.mx/pdf/lyr/reglamento-de-acceso-a-p...
This still does end up furthering the de facto apartheid we have in Mexico, however.
Apparently the coastline of the SF Bay does not count under that law. So for example the area from the Golden Gate Bridge down to San Jose, back up to Richmond, over to Larkspur and down back to the Golden Gate bridge has many places on the water that are not public.
http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?A=2705&Q=323792
Connecticut's shore belongs to the people--not just in terms of our environmental and cultural heritage, but in a specific legal sense as well. Under the common law public trust doctrine, a body of law dating back to Roman times, all coastal states as sovereigns hold the submerged lands and waters waterward of the mean high water line in trust for the public. The general public may freely use these lands and waters, whether they are beach, rocky shore, or open water, for traditional public trust uses such as fishing, shellfishing, boating, sunbathing, or simply walking along the beach. In Connecticut, a line of state Supreme Court cases dating back to the earliest days of the republic confirm that private ownership ends at mean high water line, and that the state holds title to the lands waterward of mean high water, subject to the private rights of littoral or riparian access.
The public trust area comprises submerged lands and waters waterward of the mean high water line in tidal coastal, or navigable waters of the state of Connecticut. On the ground, the public trust area extends from the water up to a prominent wrack line, debris line, or water mark. In general, if an area is regularly wet by the tides, you are probably safe to assume that it is in the public trust. The public trust area is also sometimes referred to as tidelands, and is defined as "public beach" by the Connecticut Coastal Management Act, C.G.S. 22a-93(6).
"Public rights include fishing, boating, hunting, bathing, taking shellfish, gathering seaweed, cutting sedge, and of passing and repassing. . ." Orange v. Resnick, 94 Conn. 573 (1920).
"It is settled in Connecticut that the public has the right to boat, hunt, and fish on the navigable waters of the state." State v. Brennan, 3 Conn. Cir. 413 (1965). The public has the right to fish and shellfish over submerged private lands, Peck v. Lockwood, 5 Day 22 (1811).
The public has the right to pass and repass in navigable rivers, Adams v. Pease 2 Conn. 481 (1818) .
The public may gather seaweed between ordinary high water and low water, Chapman v. Kimball 9 Day 38 (1831).
In almost every case, private property ends, and public trust property begins, at the mean high water line (often referred to as "high water mark" in court decisions). Mean high water is the average of high tides over a defined period, and its elevation can be obtained from standard references, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tidal Flood Profile charts.
The public owns up to "high water mark," Simons v. French, 25 Conn. 346 (1856).
Title of riparian proprietor terminates at ordinary high water mark, Mather v. Chapman, 40 Conn. 382 (1873).
"High water mark" = "mean high water mark" = "ordinary high water mark." Private ownership of submerged lands is possible, only when basins are dredged from upland, or from inland, non-navigable waters. Michalczo v. Woodmont, 175 Conn. 535 (1978).
The adjacent landowner has the exclusive riparian or littoral right of access to navigable water. This does not mean that the owner can exclude others from the adjacent waters, but that only the owner may get to the water from his or her upland, as by constructing a dock or other structures where appropriate and appropriately authorized. In terms of access, navigable waters are equivalent to a public road, and a dock serves the same purpose as a private driveway. A littoral landowner may not exclude the public from lawful uses of the public trust area, just as an upland owner cannot exclude the public from driving or walking on the street in front of his or her house. Of course, nuisance behavior in the public trust, such as littering, intoxication, etc. would constitute a breach of the peace, just as if done by neighbors on adjacent upland property.
e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=graphhopper_...
I do very little computer support (only friends and family and the occational coworker) and still I have solved a number of cases lately just by uninstalling anything McAfee related I could find.
Between drive by downloads and blocking internet access if you don't pay for protection it easily gets a place on my badware list at least.
So instead of blocking a tourist 'trail,' folks on my little goat-path of a street appealed to the city to assist with enforcement of existing parking regulations. They even erected some barriers to prevent blocking my garage. However the tourists still have the freedom of access while still making it workable enough for residents.
But blocking the street, breaking GPS or any other vigilante response wouldn't be appropriate because there are more interests in this town than just my own.
The key is to work together to balance interests in a way that is reasonably harmonious.
These Hollywood residents, blaming stuff such as a dog being squashed by a car on tourists are being a bit ridiculous. The dog was in the street. The fact that it was (allegedly) a tourist car that did it is irrelevant and is really just a cheap propaganda play. If the cars prevent fire trucks from access, that is something that could be handled at a city planning level and not by some residents that seem to think they are traffic engineers.
Or are we aiming for blandness here?
Back in 2007, my friends and I were at a 4 month co-op internship at Qualcomm. One weekend, we decided to drive up to LA from San Diego.
We drove as close as we could to the Hollywood sign, and got to a cul de sac where we saw a few cars parked, and a few families hiking down a hill from the sign.
We parked, and walked up the hill, noticing a sign that said it was illegal to hike to the sign. We questioned whether it was a good idea to ignore the sign, but seeing as whole families were ignoring it, we thought it would be fine.
We hiked for a few minutes, and then saw a security guard pull up in a car near our cars. I wasn't sure how legally I was parked, so we went back to avoid a ticket.
The guard ignores all the families, and targets us, asking us what we were doing hiking up there. We said we just wanted a picture, and he yelled at us about the sign. We said we didn't see it, and he called us idiots. He asked to see our IDs, at which point, my friend started talking back, saying no way. Being that we were Canadian, and on work visas, I didn't want to push my luck, being a minority too. I knew that if this guard called the cops, I'd be in a bit more trouble, and I thought I'd be in jeopardy of getting shipped back to Canada. It didn't help that the friend mouthing back wasn't a minority; I don't think he realized how scared we are in general of cops.
My friend kept mouthing off, saying that the guard had no right to talk to us like that, and we were going to leave. At this point, the guard says he's calling the cops, and that we have to deal with them.
At this point, I jumped in, asked the guard to calm down, and that I'll talk to him privately. He told me to tell my friend to watch his tone, and I pleaded with him to let us go, since I really didn't want to deal with the cops over something minor on account of us not being American. He copied down my info from my license, gave us a warning, and let us go.
Now, I did know my "rights", and I knew he had no grounds to detain us. But I didn't know those signs were fake, so I really thought we might be in trouble. Also, I didn't know if those rights applied to us as non-Americans. My friends said I was an idiot for giving my ID, and I agreed, but I just wanted to get out of there. I was 22 at the time too, so I probably was a bit more naive.
Reading this article brought back this memory, and now makes me realize how we were bamboozled. Live and learn I suppose.
It's definitely worrying that major tech companies are willing to alter their maps at the request of a few wealthy individuals.
It really does seem like there is an opportunity here that isn't being exploited though. Why doesn't someone start running tours up there? A couple of buses wouldn't cause a problem and there's money to be made from this.
Angry!
The shuttle idea is probably the best bet at the moment and the way it should be - the community and local gov't working together to solve issues rather than being petty, vindictive and somehow getting their way by having it changed on Google Maps as if it were a top secret military base and not just a pain in the ass to park.
I wish there was some company around which had a motto of "Don't be evil". I'm sure that company would have done the right thing.
After all, if you can't trust the posted signs because of residents putting up fake signs, what is the canonical source of information on what's legal?
If the local residents have got the local government to change the legal status of the roads, which is what the article makes it sound like, you can hardly blame Google for doing what the government tells them to do.
You live in a place that exists because of and is sustained by tourism and yet you hate all the people who come there and spend money.
Here's an idea: move to a place that tourists don't like.
That's neither here nor there. People want to see an attraction. It's on public parkland. The residents, whatever their motivation, do not have a right to prevent that. They could petition the city for better access (hell no, they won't do that), or policy change. Instead, they use connections and money to do things like:
- illegally threaten tourists with the use of fake signs threatening civil or criminal sanctions - personally harass visitors - hire security guards who have been told to threaten people with trespass and arrest, illegally
Just like David Geffen's famous 'fake driveway'. Amazing how everyone in Malibu knows that it's not a real driveway. That he had no right to paint the curb red or yellow indicating fire lanes, etc. The police know it. The towing companies know it. Yet, every week, they book, ticket, and tow someone who also knows it (there have been cases where people have parked there with a print-out of the whole saga pinned to their window, to prevent the usual story, which is "well, we know it's not real, but you didn't and you parked there, so you were ignoring the law").
My sympathies are ... lacking.
Oh, and there's also the Martins Beach case [2].
[1] : https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lombard+Street/@37.802189,...
[2] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Billionaire-must-allow...
I don't see why seeing people taking pictures of a landmark in your neighborhood should be tiring.
But, selfish and stupid works both ways. The homeowners near there can't deny people right of way on public streets. They can't put up fake signs/paint. This isn't right either. The best you can do is just try and keep the idiots off your own property.
Instead of saying "no, you can’t", say "go there instead". Provide an alternative.
In this case, an alternative would be creating a parking space and the start of the trail.
People don't spend usually more than a few minutes at yard sales and it sounds to me like you were just being unreasonable.
If you were so worried you might need to leave at an absolute moments notice (doctor on call or something?) why not just park in the street yourself?
I have plenty of property in front of my house that they could have parked (it's 25 extra feet they would have had to walk). That's what plenty of other people were doing. There's plenty of open space on the other side of the street as well.
If I lived there, I might just pave a few extra parking spaces into my property and charge $5 for first 30 minutes and $5 each additional 60 minutes thereafter. Buy lemonade, hiking maps, souvenir magnets, and postcards from the kiosk. 10%-off coupons for checking in on social media. Hey! Hey! Hey mister; hey lady! You wanna buy Hollywood Sign t-shirt? Hollywood Sign keychain fob? How about shopped photo with your name in place of the real sign? Don't just take selfies! Everybody takes selfies! Buy something no one else has; buy this volume-printed diorama of the sign and surrounding park, signed by the artist! Limited edition!
Whenever I have been a tourist, the single best way to make me want to leave and never return is to subject me to a continuous barrage of sales pitches for useless attraction-related crap. Example: every square centimeter of Disney World. That's like the ultimate goal of merchandising, when it all sort of collapses into this state where everything becomes an advertisement for itself, and everything you buy subtly encourages you to buy more, or maybe just put all your cash in a paper envelope and deposit it into a slot under the Walt and Mickey statue.
That's how you ruin an attraction. You don't just make it secret and exclusive; that only makes people want it more. Instead, you relentlessly try to squeeze every last drop of money out of it. If you really want the people to stop coming, your Holy Grail is the online review that says, "Not worth the $10 parking space in some guy's front yard. Locals aggressively sell touristy crap, and the sign itself seems kind of cheap and pathetic from up close."
Of course, the downside is that unless you have some sort of "identify friend or foe" system in place, you get a dozen sales pitches every time you walk from your own driveway to your own house.
I am fully aware that a NIMBY neighborhood, such as the one near the sign, would actually tar-and-feather the first person who tried to treat the invading tourists as anything other than vermin to be eliminated.
I was simply making a modest proposal, to contrast against the actual efforts of the local homeowners to discourage tourist traffic.
For instance, a while ago, I agreed to go with my family to Grand Canyon national park. I had but one condition: under no circumstances would I be asked to buy anything at any gift shop filled with touristy crap, nor even be requested to enter one. And guess what happened. We still spent over three consecutive hours in a thrice-cursed gift shop, wherein I was asked repeatedly to buy junk of the lowest quality. That was more time than was spent looking at the actual canyon, for which there was no additional charge beyond the cost of park admission.
That kindled a great fight, which everybody lost.
More recently, we visited New Orleans. My sole condition of the pre-trip planning was "No French Quarter." And guess what happened. My matrifornicating in-laws wanted to eat dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. On deity-despised Bourbon Street.
So I find that the single most effective way to make me passionately hate your locale and avoid it like an Ebola-infected bat roost forevermore is to make it into a tourist trap.
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
It's one of the few places on Earth that makes me wish I was back at home, working all day.
But it is such a massive black hole for tourism that I was still somehow find myself there against my will sometimes. Then, when we're all back at the hotel, thoroughly miserable, someone asks, "Why are we even here?" And no-one knows. Clearly, someone thought that it would be fun this time, but it never actually turns out that way. Nobody even remembers planning the trip. We all thought we were going to a beach up on the Florida panhandle. But when we arrive, it's actually Clearwater, near Orlando. Every road we take, trying to get back to the beach, twists around like a Moebius strip, and ends up right back in the Disney World parking lot, under the monorails.
So we say to ourselves, "Ok, we'll just get one pineapple whip, and then we'll leave, and try to get to the vacation we actually wanted." Then we trudge up Main Street USA and hang a left, then another left, and another left, spending 20 minutes to go from the park entrance to the nearest place in the park that sells the cursed treats, when I know damned well that the employee utility corridors underneath us, on the first floor, are straight and efficient. So we think, "As long as we're here, we might as well go on one of the rides, right?" And we get into line. We get through that line, which leads to another queue. And that takes us into a vestibule, where we see a short video with a group of other guests. After it finishes, the doors open into another queuing labyrinth. When we wait long enough to get through it, there's just one more line, and after that, we're on the actual ride. We get into the ride vehicle, and sit through five minutes of something that may have been considered to be good, clean fun in the 60s, but is now disappointingly dated, racist, and sexist. Afterward, we are deposited in the gift shop, which stands between us and the exit. After escaping, now we need to pee, so that's another unnecessarily long journey across the park and possibly more queuing. By now, it would be too late to get to the beach before dark, so we just decide to finish out the day there.
Again, how the heck did we even get there in the first place? Was it a Groupon? Maybe a neighbor couldn't use their vacation club passes this year? We won the trip in a sweepstakes? Booked by Satan's own travel agency? Nobody knows. We just end up there, being milked of our hard earned cash, like cows with udders overfilled with silver nitrate solution.
Nobody actually wants to be there. They all just show up one day, and are too exhausted to fight their way back out of the parking lot.
Samizdat internet ... even literally, according to Britannica: '(from Russian sam, “self,” and izdatelstvo, “publishing”)'
Uhm, Google Maps do this all the time if there is no route to the place you selected. I'd say I see it every time I use the routing feature by hand or by entering GPS coordinates, i.e. not when I write an address down.
Of course unlike the Hollywood sign, this is a place you wont be able to get to without a good map and some back-country navigation skills.
Whats the difference between that homeowner saying "hey i am going to break your kneecaps" vs "hey I have more money than you and am going to destroy your life with legal action." - which is what he was implying in his email
Because it isn't a threat of violence. OTOH, it can be an unlawful threat, as, e.g., extortion. [1]
[1] http://www.courts.state.nh.us/supreme/opinions/2009/hynes101...
So instead of breaking knee caps, it is more like threatening to get a person who may charge them $500 and if they don't pay, then break their knee caps. There is a chance they won't do anything, but it is still a threat of violence.
It so happens that money can unfairly influence the state, but that is the problem, not people threatening to sue.
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/barrister-loses-misconduct-...
