NYC Spending $27.5M on ... New Street Sign Font

Upper- and lower-case letters are apparently more readable
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 30, 2010 12:27 PM CDT
NYC Spending $27.5M on ... New Street Sign Font
A Times Square street sign is displayed near the old New York Times building, Saturday, June 9, 2007, in New York.   (AP Photo/Shoun Hill)

New York City is spending a whopping $27.5 million on ... wait for it ... a new street font. Its 250,000 signs will be replaced at $110 a pop within the next eight years, changing MADISON AVE. to Madison Ave. The city is doing it because the feds are requiring the combination of upper and lower case letters as part of a safety move; the Federal Highway Administration says signs written this way can be read more quickly, allowing drivers to spend more time watching the road (or their incoming text messages).

The New York Daily News is quick to point out that many New Yorkers are PEEVED, but buried at the end of its tale of fiscal woe are these little gems: Apparently, the cost to the city will be "marginal," since it gets state funding for routine sign repairs. Routine, you ask? Turns out signs are replaced every 10 years or so anyway.
(More New York City stories.)

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