City's Street Signs Looking for Foster Parents

And at only 10 bucks a pop, becoming a foster parent has never been cheaper. The National Post is reporting that the City of Toronto will be selling decommissioned street signs sooner than later, and putting up new versions that were recently approved. One wonders if they'll bear any resemblance to old-new signs which Andrew Spicer aptly described the look of as "Disneyesque faux-historic". They sound similar by description, but with new logos and the like.

It seems the city isn't just looking to make a quick buck from the sale of the signage either.

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Turns out it costs between 50-60 dollars to make and install each street sign. Add to that the cost of maintenance over the years, and $10 sounds like a steal. Residents have been asking director of transportation Robert Stopnicki for a awhile now what was being done with the old signs. It seems some parents want the sign representing where their child was born. Unless they were born on the living room carpet, that sign likely isn't Woodbine Avenue...

Rami Tabello of Spacing Wire let us know last year that signs used to be sold for scrap and/or recycled; not entirely horrible in the day and age of "Everything Green" mind you, but not exactly preserving the city's sometimes historic visual landmarks either. Also discussed was the general ugliness of the new signs, echoing what Spicer had also said.

If the new signs are anything like these ugly ones, though, not all is a wash. A "feature" of these signs is better visibility for drivers who like to speed, or rather better visibility for drivers traveling on faster roadways like Lakeshore Blvd. Brent at Urban Archi-Texture did some good old hands on analysis of the signs, and determined that the newer signs are designed to be easily read at upwards of 58 km/h, whilst the old ones were designed for about 43 km/h. If it keeps people from swerving into my fiance's car because they couldn't read a sign until the last second, I'm all for it.

Keep an eye out at the city's website for information regarding the signage sales, and I'm pretty sure we'll let you know what's going as well. Do you guys got already have your sign of choice picked out, possibly even the one on a specific intersection?

Photo from my collection