We've written about parking zones before. The City of Copenhagen has been testing painted zones in order to help people park a little less chaotic. It was tested in Amsterdam as well, and in both cities it seemed to work quite well.
My friend Michiel from the Dutch Fietsersbond (Cycling Union) sent me the above film about a Dutch artist, Roosmarijn Vergouw, who created sculptures of parked bicycles using only tape and, in the process, discovered that people will park in the zones when they're there. She calls it Fietsenzwermen - Bicycle Swarm (I'm guessing).
It's amazing to see how disciplined the cyclists became when there was tape on the ground. Vergouw now has an idea to do a similar project using spotlights. The City of Amsterdam's Bicycle Office is interested in hearing more.Here's a Dutch-language article about it in the Fietsersbond's magazine - opens as a .pdf.