U.S. cities forced to spend millions changing street signs

[Capt Worley PE]

I have a feeling this is the media making much ado about nothing. What do you roadbuilders say?

Cash-strapped cities and towns across America are having to pay out millions of dollars on new signs under orders of the federal government - because they are the wrong letter size.
Washington officials have demanded that every single street sign in the nation which is currently in capitals must be replaced because they are supposedly too hard to read.

In their place will be new signs with the same green background and the same font, the only difference being that they are in lower-case letters.

For some cities the cost will be millions of dollars at a time when budgets are being cut and salaries frozen.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13...l#ixzz16mNf5HTX

 

[ALBin517]

I have a feeling this is the media making much ado about nothing. What do you roadbuilders say?

Cash-strapped cities and towns across America are having to pay out millions of dollars on new signs under orders of the federal government - because they are the wrong letter size.
Washington officials have demanded that every single street sign in the nation which is currently in capitals must be replaced because they are supposedly too hard to read.

In their place will be new signs with the same green background and the same font, the only difference being that they are in lower-case letters.

For some cities the cost will be millions of dollars at a time when budgets are being cut and salaries frozen.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13...l#ixzz16mNf5HTX

I wonder who should be driving around if they can't read the street signs as they are now.

Lots of communities around Ann Arbor are full of blue signs with yellow letters. They could not stand to have green and white street signs.

 

[Supe]

Yeah, when I'm driving around looking for street signs at night and can't see shit, it's definitely because the letters are TOO BIG TO READ.

 

[Road Guy]

there is some new MUTCD (book that says what the signs have to be) I think were implementing it over a few years when we have the money

but its nothing new, most people that work for FHWA havent done any real ork and have to worry about funding and budgets so they do this shit all the time.

all it really does is give lawyers a way to sue small cities and counties. When there drunk client runs into a tree they can stand in court and say that X City or County didnt even follow the federal laws regarding street signs, or else my client would be alive today...

sounds like i am being over zelous but it happens...

 

[IlPadrino]

Read Snopes... http://www.snopes.com/politics/traffic/mixedcase.asp

Bottom Line: Not true but with a few grains of truth.

 

[Dleg]

^beat me to it. I saw this on Snopes last week.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Sad that the evening news is two weeks behind snopes.

Sad, but not surprising.