For those of you who haven't noticed, DPW has been installing smaller street signs around town for quite some time, perhaps for the past year or so. The new signs appear to have the same width, but their height has decreased, making for a more cramped, less readable street sign.
Take the old and new street signs on the pole at the intersection of Short and State Streets. STATE and ST are printed on a sign 9 inches tall, the letters being 6 inches tall. SHORT is printed on a sign 6 inches tall, with 4 inch letters. The letters ST are about two inches tall, being very difficult to read. I don't know about you, but I prefer the larger, older signs, not the newer ones. The new ones look cheap, they are more difficult to read because they are so cramped with smaller letters, and they are not as pleasant on the eyes. Why the change?
About 3 weeks ago, DPW replaced street signs and a pole at 5th and Columbia after the pole had been struck and bent by an errant vehicle. The pole had been poorly located to begin with -- too close to the street, and directly in the path of the pedestrian crosswalk within the curb ramp on the northwest corner of the intersection. I suggested to DPW that they relocate the pole, which they did. The pole, with a pair of the new, shorter, more cramped street signs on it, was installed on the southwest corner, out of the way of pedestrians and where it is less likely to be struck by a vehicle (but it probably will be eventually).
DPW left behind a hole in the curb ramp where the old pole had been and where one would expect pedestrians to be walking and waiting to cross the street -- a hole exactly 2 inches in diameter. And they did a crap job of cutting the pole level with concrete, so some of it is sticking out of the curb ramp/sidewalk, also waiting to trip someone to have them fall in the street. A win-win for everyone!
Do you see, once again, why our sidewalks are such a mess and have been for so long with no one at City Hall bothering to do anything about it or even knowing where to begin or who should handle it? Hudson's highest paid civil servant, perhaps the most powerful and influential official in Hudson City Hall, the person we rely on to maintain our infrastructure and keep it reliable, safe and respectable, the City of Hudson Superintendent of the Department of Public Works, sees absolutely no problem with creating a 2-inch hole in the sidewalk and leaving it be. Not bothering to fill that 2-inch hole, because, well, it doesn't bloody matter. There is no hope in solving Hudson's city-wide sidewalk disaster if the head of DPW is not on board, which he obviously is not.
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| What is wrong with these street signs - are they too big? |
As far as I know, Robert Perry has never once mentioned at a Common Council meeting the change he made to the size and look of our new street signs (though I could be mistaken). If he never mentioned it to the council or the public, I guess he felt that the new, smaller street signs weren't a thing anyone would be interested in knowing about, especially before the change was made. It simply wasn't worth mentioning or putting out there for discussion. This is not too dissimilar to a 2-inch hole in a curb ramp at an intersection along our truck route -- it doesn't matter and it won't be a problem!
Robert Perry, Hudson DPW Superintendent, makes over $115,000 a year.
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