City Hall has decided that New York is too confusing. In an effort to redirect wayward pedestrians, the city’s Department of Transportation is looking for a contractor to set up a new signage system in four different neighborhoods to tell people where they are and where they might go from here.
Signs for Confused Pedestrians Coming Soon to CH
City Hall has decided that New York is too confusing. In an effort to redirect wayward pedestrians, the city’s Department of Transportation is looking for a contractor to set up a new signage system in four different neighborhoods to tell people where they are and where they might go from here.
The city hopes the new signs, dubbed a “wayfinding system,” will encourage people to walk instead of driving or crowding onto subways and buses. It also wants to make it easier for people to shop.
“New Yorkers seem to know it all, except how to get around town sometimes,” Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said. “We’ve got great signage for cars, but we don’t have great directional signage for pedestrians.”
A city survey of 500 pedestrians found that the man on the street is often lost. Nine percent of those surveyed who were from New York said they had been lost in the last week. For tourists, that figure was 27%. One-third of New Yorkers couldn’t point to north.
The city also believes that pedestrians are confused about where neighborhoods begin and end. Take, for example, the section of Lower Manhattan between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. In different spaces, according to the Department of Transportation, that space has been labeled as Chinatown, Two Bridges, Knickerbocker Village and the Seaport Historic District.
And Queens? That borough “can particularly confound a pedestrian,” the city said, due to street naming quirks that have led to the creation of a 30th Street, 30th Avenue, 30th Drive and 30th Road.
The city is prepared to spend up to $9.5 million on the project, but the first phase will cost $1.5 million. With federal funds will covering 80% of the costs and business improvement districts pitching in, the city expects to spend about $300,000 at the beginning.
The areas covered by the initiative include Chinatown, Long Island City, Midtown Manhattan and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights. Other neighborhoods would be able to apply for their own signage systems.
The new sign system has not been designed, and it’s not clear what form the signage will take. One rendering shows a large rectangle displaying a map, the location and the time it would take to walk to other places nearby. A city brochure on the project also cites the in-ground compasses that point to different neighborhoods on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Fiscally responsible
And this will cost how much exactly??? We are cutting back on day care, closing fire houses & we’re putting up “You are HERE!!!!” signs for the moronic amongst us?
You voted him in, folks!
thought it said….
signs TO confuse pedestrians
Hershel Moss
#1, I agree with your sentiment 100%.
And…
Maybe if the city would cut less from education (day care, parental rights programs, etc.), pedestrians will be less confused!
We need this in CH
It is VERY important to tell people where to go. I think it is a mishna: You should know where you are and where you are going. I think there is also a ma’amor about G-d asking every Jew, “Where are you?” Now let’s tell everyone where to go.
Get lost!
Many cities in Europe have this. The problem is that in NY the structures may well be vandalized and useless in a short period of time.
Chinatown/Little Italy/The Lower East Side in particular is a maze, and besides being a tourist attraction, it is an area through which many people have to or want to walk on their way to work or shop elsewhere.
not surprised
Also being cut are funds for the elderly. Elderly and ill, citizens are losing their longtime aides,often illegaly. The governor wants all elderly receiving in home care, to be placed in nursing homes by 2012.
This is how governments have always worked, implementing wasteful and oftentimes ill-advised programs. Anyone remember the MTA mascot, a millions dollar initiative to make straphangers like the subway?
Steven
Considering more and more people have smart phones, this seems like a waste of money. 5 years from now these will be totally useless.