New York To Spend $27.5 Million Uncapitalizing Street Signs

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New York To Spend $27.5 Million Uncapitalizing Street Signs

Posted by samzenpus on Friday October 1, 2010 @04:48AM from the beware-the-big-letters dept.

250,000 street signs in New York City feature street names in capital letters only, which is not the national standard. Having no other issues on the table, The New York City Department of Transportation has decided to fix the problem and put up proper signs featuring both capital and lower-case letters at a cost of $27.5 million. The Transportation Department hopes to have the job completed by 2018 with 11,000 of the most important improperly capitaled signs fixed by the end of the year. Catastrophe averted.

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I Think.... by DIplomatic · 2010-10-01 04:51 · Score: 5, Funny

...it's a CAPITAL idea!
Yeah... by Sedated2000 · 2010-10-01 04:52 · Score: 2, Funny

Because with the economic woes, war in Afghanistan going poorly... we need to rush to uncapitalize the signs in New York. Or the terrorists win.
1. Re:Yeah... by Swarley · 2010-10-01 04:58 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  As far as the economic woes, seems like as good a way to create jobs as any. It's basically just stimulus money that happens to be taking care of a long term issue at the same time.
2. Re:Yeah... by JonySuede · 2010-10-01 05:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I don't agree with you, it is not a good a way to create jobs as any. Replacing working sings is really much a textbook example of the Broken window fallacy
  
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3. Re:Yeah... by Alanbly · 2010-10-01 06:56 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It's the broken window principal and has been demonstrated to work. And they'd be replacing the signs anyway, they're just changing the case on the new signs.
  
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  -- Adam McCormick
Awesome by jonnythan · 2010-10-01 04:52 · Score: 3, Funny

This is a great initiative to implement when facing massive, crippling budget deficits.
1. Re:Awesome by Volante3192 · 2010-10-01 05:24 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It's called perspective.
  People have no qualms whining about the $50 billion the Department of Education is budgeted.
  But dare to say the $650 billion Department of Defence budget could get cut a little, you're suddenly weakening the country, giving in to the terrorists and a very very bad man.
  Cutting $50 billion out of a $1,000 billion deficit is peanuts, though.
2. Re:Awesome by sycodon · 2010-10-01 05:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm not buying the argument that the budget can't be cut. And yes, I'd start with the Education Department. It teaches no one and is the primary cause of regulator burden on schools.
  And Entitlements should not be off the table. Lots can be done to reduce costs such as phasing in higher retirement ages for SS, take a hard look at the current practice of SS being used as a replacement for welfare, etc.
  Other things like a across the board freeze on Federal pay and a freeze on hiring are common sense things to do.
  Yes, some things that many people would agree are good would be cut, but there are many, many more things that people agree are good that we don't do now and can't afford to do.
  And we probably should close the Supermax prisons. Instead, open a second Gitmo on some island somewhere and make'm live in tents. I'd suggest that they be made to scavenge for food themselves, but I'm sure the ACLU would shit bricks as well as the entire Democratic establishment.
  
  --
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3. Re:Awesome by sycodon · 2010-10-01 06:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That's what phasing in means.
  And yes, SS is a Ponzi scheme. All the more reason to ditch it (phase it out) in favor of some kind of plan that relies more of private investment. I shudder to think what I would have saved up if that 6% of my paycheck had gone into a properly managed account (which means not in high risk junk bonds, mortgages, etc.) for the past 25 years.
  
  --
  When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
4. Re:Awesome by cgenman · 2010-10-01 06:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/million_kuj8X4Z2VolVhXnCymfkvM
  Apparently, 8,000 signs are replaced in New York every year anyway for wear and tear anyway. And the initiative started in 2003, for a 2018 deadline. If they started sooner, they would be in a better position. This is also a federal program, not a state or city program, both of whom opposed the initiative because they didn't want the deadline. And street signs have a lifetime expectancy of 10 years. 15 years to replace all of the signs, when they're expected to be replaced every 10 years, seems fine.
  Better reflective backing, and a font designed for maximum road readability at distances, seems completely reasonable. The increased cost sounds marginal (as the DOD states), as signs aren't really that robust long-term (my sister worked with the sign department for an LA suburb).
  Really, this is a controversy manufactured to sell papers. And it worked.
  
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5. Re:Awesome by Waffle+Iron · 2010-10-01 07:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  What would you do if your pension plan -- that you've paid into for years -- suddenly decided that you need to be older to collect?
  Then it might not go broke, like so many real-world pension plans have.
  People live longer than they did when SS was introduced. If you live longer, you need to work longer. What's so hard to figure out about that?
  IMO, Social Security should be allocated a fixed percentage of all national personal income, and the retirement age should be continuously adjusted to match the amount of money coming in. That takes all the demographic risks out of the system.
6. Re:Awesome by rgmoore · 2010-10-01 09:43 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If you had bothered to read the article- yeah, I know, this is Slashdot- you would have noticed that they mention that the cost is marginal. That's because the signs would need to be replaced on about the same schedule anyway as part of routine maintenance. So a more accurate description of the article would be "New York plans to use mixed case instead of all caps during routine street sign maintenance". But that wouldn't get enough people angry, so they went with the more inflammatory version.
  
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Auction the old ones by Spiflicator · 2010-10-01 04:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Certainly wont pull in anywhere close to the cost of replacements, but I imagine authentic street signs for particular streets would sell for a decent price.
Re:I've got a better idea. by MozeeToby · 2010-10-01 04:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yeah, they could give each citizen back... oh. $3.50. Why, you could buy a couple of 20oz bottles of Mt.Dew for that much.
Money well spent by bobdotorg · 2010-10-01 05:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is money well spent, at least on busier intersections, and exits from limited access highways.
Drivers can read / recognize mixed case from further distance than all caps.
It's not a great leap to conclude that with this change, drivers will make fewer last second swerves, or stop short less often. TFA alludes to this.
Safety increases ever so slightly, but for millions of people, and for many years.
Though if I were a NY tax payer I would prefer that they replace them through attrition. The fact that it will take until 2018 makes this seem to be partially the case.

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Non-story by NeoRete · 2010-10-01 05:02 · Score: 5, Informative

In another article about this states that NYC replaces 8,000 signs a year anyway due to wear and tear and has until 2018 to finish.
From the article:

The additional cost to the city, if any, will be "marginal" because it receives a steady stream of state funding for routine sign repairs and replacement, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said. The life of a typical sign is about a decade, so most of the city's signs would be replaced in the next few years anyway, Solomonow said.
They didn't follow federal regulations on road signage, but are fixing them now as part of regular maintenance.

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Re:I've got a better idea. by rhsanborn · 2010-10-01 05:03 · Score: 3, Informative

Not in NYC...
Penny wise, dollar foolish. by markdowling · 2010-10-01 05:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because who cares if an ageing driver population can quickly scan signs and return their eyes to the road in an urban area, right?
1. Re:Penny wise, dollar foolish. by VGPowerlord · 2010-10-01 05:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I DON'T KNOW. YOU TELL ME WHICH OF THESE IS HARDER TO READ.
  I don't know. You tell me which of these is harder to read.
  Oh, and of course, to post this, I have to type extra paragraphs because /. has a "lameness filter."
  
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2. Re:Penny wise, dollar foolish. by FrostDust · 2010-10-01 05:26 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No one drives in Manhatten anymore, there're too many cars.
Sell the signs by markdowling · 2010-10-01 05:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Wall Street signs alone, if auctioned, would probably pay for the whole project.
UPI article is deceptive. by Remus+Shepherd · 2010-10-01 05:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Hold on! That UPI article is deceptive, and does not tell the whole story. Check out the original article in the NY Daily News, which I found via MotherJones:

The mixed upper- and lowercase rule was adopted in 2003, but municipalities were given until 2018 to comply completely, Hecox said....The additional cost to the city, if any, will be "marginal" because it receives a steady stream of state funding for routine sign repairs and replacement, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said. The life of a typical sign is about a decade, so most of the city's signs would be replaced in the next few years anyway, Solomonow said.
So the signs are going to be replaced on a schedule where they would be replaced anyway, almost all of the funding comes from the routine sign replacement budget, and the whole deal was arranged back in 2003.
This is a non-story that some political jerks want to blow up into unreasonable proportions.

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That answers that... by stazeii · 2010-10-01 05:14 · Score: 2, Funny

When driving in/around NYC, I always wondered why it felt like I was being yelled at. =P
Re:End of the Year Budget Inflation by FuckingNickName · 2010-10-01 05:15 · Score: 2, Informative

Because taxpayer money is for maintaining roads, but not for building political monuments.
You buy the land and build your own towers.
Re:Budget? by canajin56 · 2010-10-01 05:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oh, you're right, 100% of that money is coming from the State's fund for road sign replacement. NYC already has to replace 8000 signs a year due to wear and tear, or theft. They have elected to replace them with new signs, instead of identical signs. So while 100% of that is state money, 0% of it is new money. The Slashdot summary is actually another lie, like 99% of all Slashdot summaries. It's like if I decide "diet time" and so declare to my cat that next time we're out of frozen hamburger patties, I will buy the $10 box of extra lean patties, instead of the $9 box of medium patties. My decision cost me $1, not $10! In this instance, it doesn't even cost NYC more money for mixed-case signs, so their decision cost them $0, and Slashdot took $0 and turned it into millions, because outrage at government spending gives Slashbots a hard-on.

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Re:I've got a better idea. by McGruber · 2010-10-01 05:26 · Score: 2, Informative

Leave the signs as they are
Signs are sheet metal with some paint on them.
Paint fades over time.
Ergo, the signs would have to be replaced anyway.
The article says that NYC is replacing 11,000 of their 250,000 street signs this year -- those are signs they would be replacing anyway, as part of routine maintenance.
Re:I've got a better idea. by DragonWriter · 2010-10-01 05:34 · Score: 3, Informative

Leave the signs as they are, and refund that money to the taxpayers.
But the signs are going to need to be replaced anyway, so not changing them to lowercase as they are replaced wouldn't actually save the cost of replacement. There's a reason that the 2003 federal regulation at issue that requires that this be done gave until 2018 for it to be complete.
Re:Budget? by DevConcepts · 2010-10-01 05:41 · Score: 5, Funny

because outrage at government spending gives Slashbots a hard-on.
Great free alternative to the little blue pill
Re:Budget? by bws111 · 2010-10-01 06:09 · Score: 2, Informative

They ARE replacing the signs as part of normal maintenance. There is no 'additional' money being spent. The total cost of the project may well be $27M, but it is the same $27M they would have spent replacing signs even if they didn't change the lettering.
Re:Budget? by atrain728 · 2010-10-01 06:11 · Score: 3, Informative

$110 for metal plus paint plus installation. I'd guess the installation portion is non trivial in cost, much as it would seem trivial to do.

Anyway, if there are 240,000 signs, and they replace 8000 a year, it would seem that the average life of a sign would be 30 years, not 2-3.
Re:Nonsense by bws111 · 2010-10-01 06:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

All caps grabs your attention. It is why we still have STOP and SPEED LIMIT signs. You want driver's eyes to be drawn to them, because the information is important. Street names are not important, unless you are specifically looking for them. So for street name signs mixed case is better, because you can both read it easier when you are looking for a street, but you are not encouraged to look at them otherwise.
Re:Money well spent? by Americano · 2010-10-01 06:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

60 mph = 88 feet per second.
Say the new signs get your eyes back on the road half a second quicker - that's 44 *less* feet that you've traveled without watching the cars in front of you.
Don't think a lot can happen in that 44 feet you traveled in that extra half second?
Stopping distance for a car going 60 mph (assuming 1.5s reaction time + avg braking distance of ~250 feet, multiple sources found through google report that this seems to be the average consensus, yielding ~350-400 feet as stopping distance on a flat/level/dry surface, for an auto traveling at 60mph.
So that 44 feet is about 10% of your stopping distance - a 10% larger margin of safety every time you look away from the road and read a road sign. That's not trivial, especially when you consider the hundreds of thousands of vehicles travelling around NYC. If it helps prevent 2 minor accidents a day, that's lower emergency services costs, slightly lower insurance rates, less money spent on road repairs, and less money spent on average by people repairing their vehicles. If the science behind the studies is sound, it does add up in the aggregate.
Re:Budget? by cgenman · 2010-10-01 06:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why is it that whenever something is wrong in one area, clearly the solution is to not spend any money anywhere else until that problem is fixed?

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Re:Budget? by cmiller173 · 2010-10-01 06:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Feds Say All-Caps Street Signs Cause Accidents -- And Tells NYC To Spend $28 Million To Replace Them http://www.businessinsider.com/feds-say-all-caps-street-signs-cause-accidents-and-tells-nyc-to-spend-28-million-to-replace-them-2010-9
Re:Budget? by bws111 · 2010-10-01 07:11 · Score: 2, Funny

.00001% need to be replaced each year? Really? The average life of a street sign is 10 million years? Wow. Thanks for the info.
Re:Budget? by BarryJacobsen · 2010-10-01 07:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why is it that whenever something is wrong in one area, clearly the solution is to not spend any money anywhere else until that problem is fixed?
Because THIS problem affects ME. Don't you know who I AM?!?!?

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Re:Budget? by Marcika · 2010-10-01 08:46 · Score: 2, Informative

Well that was a nice focused rant now wasn't it.
Point is, maybe like .00001% of street signs need replacing in any normal year.
Yet now they want to replace ALL 250,000 of them over 8 years, and that does not include the of 8000 replacements done for theft reasons EACH year. So it works out to something like 39 times the normal replacement rate.
Personally, it seems unlikely to me that there are ONLY 250,000 street signs in NYC.

Point is, maybe like .00001% of street signs need replacing in any normal year.
You imbecile (pls look up that word...). Are you suggesting that street signs only need replacing every million years? Please (1) switch brain on, (2) think.
Re:Budget? by Delarth799 · 2010-10-01 10:39 · Score: 2, Funny

A cool person, because caps lock is cruise control for cool 8-)