Drivers along New Scotland Avenue in Slingerlands may have noticed a change in the road signs in recent weeks, and that is just a sign of things to come.
As federal regulations from 2009 take effect, new road signs will soon be seen across the state and in local municipalities as their older versions come due for replacement.
“Those (New Scotland Avenue signs) were replaced as part of a project in Albany and Rensselaer counties to improve the reflective nature of those signs,” said state Department of Transportation Public Information Officer Bryan Viggiani.
The original regulations passed by the Federal Highway Administration called for much larger signs to be installed by 2017. The signs would be 12 inches high with 6-inch lettering, unless on a local road where the speed was 30 mph or lower. In those instances, signs could be 8 inches high with 4-inch lettering. All new signs also must have capital and lower case letters, a change from the current all-caps version.
The new standards are being implemented for visibility reasons.
Bethlehem Highway Superintendent Brent Meredith brought up the new regulations during the town’s budget negotiations. Some Town Board members had seen the new signs installed by the state along New Scotland Avenue and said they were unattractive. They said they were also were worried about the cost of having to replace all of the town’s road signs by 2017 to meet the new regulations. At the time, Meredith said the town has more than 1,600 road signs it would be responsible for replacing, and the cost could place a large burden on his department’s budget.
After some research, it was found other municipalities had similar concerns, but in 2012, the federal regulations were changed so signs no longer have to be swapped to the new style by 2017. New ones now must be installed whenever the old ones have reached their life expectancy.
Meredith said the cost for the new signs will still be more than what the town pays now. The new requirements also call for breakaway posts to be installed. Signs are currently put into the ground using concrete. In the future, signs will have a short bracket cemented into the ground, and the remainder of the sign will be attached with a bolt. This will help reduce damage if the signs are hit, and may also make it easier to replace signs faster.
The new regulations also mean intersection signs will no longer be on top of one another, but at an almost 90 degree angle. Meredith said mock ups are being done by the Highway Department to see what will work best for the town.
“The signs are a little less aesthetically pleasing,” said Supervisor John Clarkson, referring to the size of some of them. “But it’s not anywhere near what we thought as far as the height, so I’m not as worried about it now because the cost will be incremental.”
Clarkson said he still found the requirements to be “misguided” and wondered how the aesthetics were weighed appropriately against “some theoretical standard of visibility.”
Meredith said the town is now calculating how much more the signs will cost versus the older version. The town specs will also have to be updated for developers in case they build any new roads in the future. He plans to go back before the Town Board within the next month to provide recommendations.
“Obviously the upside is we don’t have to go out and replace 400 signs every year to meet a deadline,” said Meredith.
