Street sign rules cause high-visibility tumult

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By Andrew Conte

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Residents of Franklin Park know they're close to home when they see the community's unique vertical street signs, mounted on 6-inch wooden posts.

Those signs could disappear. Because of new federal rules designed to make street signs nationwide easier to read for older drivers, the borough plans to spend more than $15,000 this decade to install 400 horizontal signs.

" Now we're losing something that is unique to our community because of a federal mandate," borough Manager Ambrose Rocca said. "The federal government should stay out of our business. We will be losing part of our history."

Cities and small towns are scrambling to comply with the rules and preparing to spend thousands of dollars to get into compliance. The rules require larger letters and reflective surfaces, and they would eliminate wording in all capital letters.

Uproar over the rules intensified this week, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday that communities could have 45 days to submit comments about when the changes should be implemented.

" Given the difficult economic conditions states currently face, asking for additional input on compliance dates is the right thing to do," LaHood said in a statement. "We want to be sure these safety requirements are reasonable, fair and cost-effective."
Pittsburgh is spared a huge sign overhaul because of the foresight of former Mayor Sophie Masloff. She pushed the city in 1988 to install street signs with white letters on a blue background, in lettering that isn't all-caps.

" I considered it a great improvement," said Masloff, who served from 1988 to 1994. "They were really old and, in some cases, not there at all. They were in terrible shape."
As a result, most of the city's 600,000-plus signs meet the new codes, Public Works Director Rob Kaczorowski said. The city plans to spend about $160,000 to update the rest of them.
By comparison, Milwaukee will spend $1.4 million to replace more than 17,500 signs, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

Smaller cities have been coping with the pending changes by replacing a few signs at a time.
Greensburg spends about $6,000 a year on signs, out of a $10 million budget, City Administrator Susan Trout said. The new signs are the right size and reflective, but they have been written in capital letters. Replacements will have to include lower-case letters.

" If public safety is the issue, we'll comply," Trout said. McKeesport replaced about 180 street signs two years ago with ones that are reflective and the correct size -- but also in capital letters, Public Works Director Nick Shermenti said. The city makes its own signs and easily could change the lettering, he said. " I think we're going to be OK," Shermenti said.
Allegheny County, which maintains about 10,000 signs, has not made more than it needs, said Steve Smallhoover, project manager for Public Works. At $100 a sign, he worries about having to replace signs to fit the federal rules.

" We haven't gone out of our way to make extra signs," Smallhoover said. "I don't want to have signs going out there that could be taken down the next year."

Some of the changes were in the works for years, said Mark Alexander, manager of the signing section for PennDOT. The state agency oversees 1.5 million signs.

By 2012, street signs on most roads must be at least 6 inches high, although municipalities had a decade to make the changes. A newer requirement mandates that street signs must be reflective by 2018.

The change on capital letters does not have a deadline, so communities can replace signs to comply with the law as needed for basic maintenance.

" The idea is not to force people to go out and spend money needlessly, but to have a phase-in period where, through routine maintenance, they can change to the new standard," Alexander said.

The cost of replacing signs can be justified by the consequences of not making them easier to read, said Bob Firth, president of Informing Design, a Downtown company that designs road signs and maps. He works as a consultant to the Maryland Department of Transportation and collaborated with federal regulators on the rules.

" Everyone is sensitive to the fact that the population is getting older and their eyesight is getting poorer," Firth said. "You really can't mess around with putting up signs that people can't read, because you're just going to get into trouble."

The changes are needed but the government might have a little time to extend the deadlines, said Brian Newbacher, spokesman for the American Automobile Association. By 2030, one in five licensed drivers will be 65 or older, compared to 15 percent now.

" There will be a safety benefit," Newbacher said. "But we commiserate with local governments faced with hardships and trying to pay for these programs."

Link to newspaper article

Maine town wins fight to save its curbside mailbox
from Associated Press - Aug. 14, 2009

OTISFIELD, Maine - The U.S. Postal Service has decided to keep a rural Maine town's lone mailbox after a protest that included a phone blitz, pressure from elected officials and a blockade to prevent the box's removal.

Regional postal spokesman Tom Rizzo said in a statement issued this week that the agency has reversed its earlier decision to get rid of the Otisfield mailbox.

News of Otisfield's plight drew national attention, and letters of support for the town's 1,700 residents came from as far away as Louisiana and California. A professor from Monterey, Calif., is using this story for his critical-thinking class.

Marianne Izzo-Morin, the town's administrative assistant who had vowed to padlock herself to the box if necessary, told the Sun Journal of Lewiston that the outpouring of support is "unbelievalble."