250,900 street signs in New York City will be changed from all-caps to initial caps, where only the first letter is capitalized. The legibility will save lives, say the federal guidelines mandating the change, which will cost the city $27.6 million to implement.
Research has shown that words in all-caps are harder to read and the extra time not looking at the road increases the chance of accidents, especially among older drives.
The font will also change from standard highway to typeface to a newly custom designed one called Clearview, and the signs will have a reflective coating.
States have argued that the increased legibility didn’t justify the cost, so cities are allowed until 2018 for total compliance.
“On the Internet, writing in all caps means you are shouting,” the city Transportation Commissioner told the New York Post. “Our new signs can quiet down, as well.”
$27 million to change NYC signs from all-caps [New York Post]
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Sounds to me like they’d be better off firing some people who make really bad decisions. Who gives a damn whether street signs are all capital letters or not? Anyone? Bueller?
What about the size of the road sign? As a frequent traveler up until 5 years ago, that was my biggest pet peeve about some location’s road signs, they were just too small to read traveling at 35 MPH. NY State was the worst when it came to signs being small. Don’t just change the lettering, please enlarge them too.
While we’re at it, when will NY State change their Interstate and Highway exits to correspond to the mile marker and not to where the exit falls in the overall exit count? NY, get with the times.
I find it hard to believe that smaller, more complex lowercase letters are easier to read on street signs – which are at a distance and generally moving by quickly and only glanced at – than the larger, simpler, uniform-height uppercase. Sure, all caps is hard to read entire paragraphs of, but it seems like it’d be much easier to read a word or two in that situation in uppercase.