Street Closure Signs for Hollywood Expected to Top $600K

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) says it needs $635,000 to handle the expected increase in demand for street closure signs related to Hollywood film productions this year.

In a memo to the L.A. City Council this week, LADOT wrote that due to the newly expanded film production credit program in California, demand for the street closure signs is expected to rise along with the department’s costs.

According to Deadline Hollywood, LADOT stipulated in the memo that a single street closure sign costs $17.08. Among the costs that go into a single sign are $1.10 for the actual sign itself, $12.19 for installation, and $4.89 for removal. Just 13 people work in the LADOT Paint and Sign Operations department, which oversees street closure signs for film productions citywide. 

Now, LADOT has asked the City Council for $475,000 to hire four additional full-time employees, as well as $160,000 to upgrade the Traffic Event and Management System, a computerized system that keeps track of all sign postings and removals. 

Luckily for LADOT, the money is there; it will just have to convince the City Council to give it a piece of the $1.8 million in film production fees that currently flow into the city’s general fund, instead of the department that actually puts up and oversees the signs.