Show me the street signs of your city
 

Vieux-Montréal

https://pixy.org/src/3/30170.jpg

Normal blue, except for the heritage district (downtown and surrounding neighborhoods), which has its own.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMWpArQKb...0/DSC_0063.jpg

Normal, generic green everywhere in the City of St. John's proper...

https://i.postimg.cc/nLGTcS8R/Capture.png

...with the single exception of streets named after battles the Royal Newfoundland Regiment took part in are given their caribou symbol.

https://i.postimg.cc/FHsHB7rY/Capture.png

And the suburbs all have their own - Mount Pearl's is blue, Holyrood has a world-class shitty fake wood one, etc.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/30...ff602fe6f2.jpg




Wonder why on-building signs never caught on in NA?

I’d guess because our roads are designed for vehicles and most intersections either have no buildings or have them too far set back.

They were standard until I'm not sure when ... probably the 30s or 40s. I imagine they were too difficult to spot when cars started to travel at speeds significantly faster than carriages had.

You still see them - there were a few on houses around the Annex in Toronto and I remember a few in Winnipeg too - there was always one on the Fortune Block but I don't believe they replaced it when they finished restoring it last year.

There are many in Québec City where the sidewalk is next to the building's facade.

Makes sense. Old Montreal has them on some streets, and I think there is the odd financial district building in Toronto with a sign.

Here is another old way to indicate street names. I took this photo in 2009 of the street name OSBORNE PLACE in Winnipeg. This was interesting since my grandmother grew up on this street from about 1919 onward and by that time it was called Whitehall Avenue. (The street, directly across from the Manitoba Legislature, was eliminated in the 1950s but a portion of the sidewalk was retained.) So the "Osborne Place" sidewalk block, which is gone now, must have been close to a century old.

https://live.staticflickr.com/2481/3...b5f33c43_z.jpgOsborne Place by wintorbos, on Flickr

This postcard from my collection shows the corner of St. George Street and Harbord Street (left) and Hoskin Avenue (right), which is now the heart of the University of Toronto campus. The Robarts Library now stands where the houses on the left are and the house at right is now the Catholic Newman Centre. You can see a "Hoskin Avenue" sign nailed to the tree in front of that house.

https://live.staticflickr.com/8533/8...6e4e5f58_z.jpgSt. George Street, Toronto by wintorbos, on Flickr

I knew I was right about the "St. Mary Av." sign that used to be on the Fortune Block on Main Street in Winnipeg (removed, as far as I know, in the recent stunning renovation). It's visible just to the left of the No Stopping pictograph sign. I don't think that that type of sign would have been quite enough for the automobile age, and North America doesn't seem to have gone for the jumbo-sized street signs that Europe did.

https://live.staticflickr.com/5201/5...e5cf8051_z.jpgCommercial Hotel block by wintorbos, on Flickr

In Halifax there are still a few old stone street signs. The new ones are a mix of generic black or green. The name of this street changed from Wallace to Bishop:

https://i.imgur.com/XWKPg1R.jpg
(from Google Street View)

London has plain white text on green signs, with some streets named after fallen military, with a poppy on the sign, both examples in this google streetview image.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.01607...7i13312!8i6656

Certain neighbourhoods have special signs, like downtown, and the original neighbourhood just to the north.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.98902...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.98324...7i13312!8i6656

Remember these?

https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2482...cf25d0fc_b.jpg

^Yeah much nicer. The newish ones look so tacky, like they're sold in Dollarama or Walmart. Iirc, Fergus and Elora have some interesting old signs either attached to buildings or even in stone.

They weren't really pretty but at least they were unique.

I like these classic-style street signs.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...f_dollars.html

Though I have to say I absolutely hate the abbreviations (St, Ave, Rd) without a period at the end. It just looks sloppy to me. Either write it out in full or end it with a period!

The ones without the periods (and mixed upper and lower case) weren't very old anyway. They were the first attempt at "modernizing", probably in the 1990s. There are also some there from the various pre-amalgamation boroughs, which had different signs (mainly white on blue).

The use of periods in abbreviations is pretty much limited to the U.S. and Canadian English - U.K. style has disfavoured periods for decades now.

Those were so Toronto. I really wish they would bring them back.

Hey now..

In Coquitlam the main roads have blue signs that light up, some of them cast light down onto the intersection for better pedestrian visibility

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7eb36e39_b.jpg2020-07-31_06-28-44 by snub_you, on Flickr

Maillairdville has special signs in french and english
https://i1.wp.com/thelasource.com/en...?fit=538%2C404
thelasource.com

most side streets are just like this
https://mrp-listings.myrealpage.com/...978144a32.jpeg
mrp-listings.myrealpage.com