New York City - Transit News

[Busy Bee]

Special areas and historic districts are exempt. Think the black signs in Lower Manhattan, the half-assed blue porcelain throwback signs in Midtown or the plethora of brown designated historic district signs.

As for the rest of the city, and a great many American cities and towns, they have lost their unique color variation/typeface/plaque design and adopted the FHWA standard of what was an earlier gothic set in caps but is now a font called Clearview mandated to be set in mixed-case in white on a reflective highway green background. There's some research into suspected readability speed at certain distances and speeds but whether that's necessary to make cities and towns spend large sums to have their street signs match signs on highways designed to be readable at 80 mph is a very fair question. Like I mentioned above, my issue isn't with the font or the upper and lowercase, it's that awful shade of green. NYC should have kept its borough color coded signs or at least opted out of the federal standard and pursued something citywide but unique, handsome and iconic if possible. As mentioned I would have loved to see the black on yellow come back in Manhattan or something that played off the old humpback signs with their additional block address info.

And yes, LA has their blue signs and SF has their white. They are still underway with conversion to mixed-case but I'm not sure what the arrangement is that allows them to opt out of the federal FHWA/MUTCD standard. Might be a California thing.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

???

The feds made NYC change its street signs to green? I just assumed that's just what NYC chose to switch over to. Aren't there some districts that have different colored street signs? I could've sworn I've seen fairly recent pictures of some NYC intersections with blue or brown street signs.

Here in California, street signs run the gamut of colors. City of Los Angeles street signs are white lettering/numbers on a blue background, and many older signs still exist. What seems to be the trend here among cities in newer street signs is that many are now switching to upper/lower case, instead of all caps. I noticed the newest Beverly Hills street signs are upper/lower case, but they're still black lettering on a white background.

yes, but its an outlier these days, you might want to get out of cali once in awhile and see america.
the vast majority of all roadway signage is green, mostly since the mid 80s.
i was never happy about that happening.

uncle google can tell you more --

https://www.herrick.com/publications...y%2030%20years.

[Busy Bee]

The blogger at forgotten new york has spent years reporting on surviving old street signs in the five boroughs, amongst many other things on that website. If anyone has never visited the site, it is a must.

[TowerDude]

Speaking of NYC Street Signage ... I love the Avenue of the Americas Medallions and I'm so happy that they are being restored:

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

yes, but its an outlier these days, you might want to get out of cali once in awhile and see america.

I've already seen a lot of "America," and did notice the green street signs everywhere. I never gave it a second thought for some reason; I just thought a lot of jurisdictions didn't think to design their own street signs and went to one generic low-cost sign manufacturer or something.

And I did leave California last fall.

I just had to do a search, and I found a place in the northeast that actually has its own kind of street sign! Seekonk, Massachussetts!

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8102...5410&entry=ttu

[Busy Bee]

In summary and distilled to it's essence from Forgotten NY:

As you know by now if you have been a FNY fan, NYC street signs were formerly color coded by borough; Brooklyn was white on black, Queens blue on white, Bronx white on blue, and both Staten Island and Manhattan, black on yellow. In the 1980s the feds mandated that signage, except in historic and developmental districts, must be the same shade of green used on highway signs; so it was written and so it was done. In the 2010s the Feds further mandated that all new street signs had to be upper and lower case, instead of all caps.

[k1052]

The governor has canned congestion pricing a few weeks before it goes into effect, blowing a giant hole in MTA's budget that will almost certainly not be filled.

I was always skeptical that this would be allowed to get implemented but it looked like it had amazingly made it. Cynicism when it comes to NY ever doing the right thing policy wise is entirely warranted.

[chris08876]

NYC congestion pricing plan indefinitely paused


• Video Link

NYC's congestion pricing plan will be indefinitely paused, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday. FOX 5 NY's Morgan McKay has the latest.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by k1052

The governor has canned congestion pricing a few weeks before it goes into effect, blowing a giant hole in MTA's budget that will almost certainly not be filled.

I was always skeptical that this would be allowed to get implemented but it looked like it had amazingly made it. Cynicism when it comes to NY ever doing the right thing policy wise is entirely warranted.

I was skeptical too but figured there was no turning back once they started putting up the plate readers. If she was going to kill it, I don't get why she waited so long. At this point the Long Islanders still hate her for it and will continue to hold it against her, but now she's also pissed off all the people that wanted it.

[mrnyc]

she caved — oh well.

forget about those mta capital plans and look out for service cuts.

[Nouvellecosse]

I didn't expect this either given she's been in office for several years and I didn't hear her expressing concerns about it. Although i'm sure I'm not following as closely as some.

[Busy Bee]

This should be interesting to say the least.

[k1052]

State is absolutely going to get sued for not following black letter law. It is unclear that she is leveraging any legal authority to block implementation.

[Crawford]

This is a monumentally stupid and cynical decision.

I'm trying to think of a more cynical policy decision, from any politician, of either party. Just days ago she was extolling the virtues of Congestion Pricing in meetings abroad.

Even a one-year delay would be really freaking horrible.

[mrnyc]

haay, lets just take the train to the hamptons —


https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7fA6...ZjaDN6bW9rNTRy

[streetscaper]

I'm absolutely DONE with Hochul, will never vote for her again after this. A lot of my progressive friends saying the same.

[Crawford]

I won't vote for her again. And I'm not even progressive, I'm pretty centrist. But this is completely idiotic. Just days before, after 20 years of work? People have been working on this since Mayor Bloomberg.

There is nothing a GOP gov. could do to NYC that would be worse than what she just did. I'm not sure there's anything a (God forbid) President Dump could do that would be worse.

And it will backfire politically. One of the most competitive House districts has a Dem candidate who has been an outspoken supporter of congestion pricing. So she just threw him under the bus (pun intended).

[mrnyc]

that’s the problem, hochul is a spineless centerist too in progressive clothing.

[mrnyc]

this should help busy 2nd av — of course a 2nd av subway would help more, but forget that with no congestion $$$ —



Construction starts on revamped Second Avenue bus, bike lanes

By Ben Brachfeld
Posted on June 4, 2024


…

The city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) project will widen the existing bike lane on Second Avenue between 59th and Houston streets from 6 feet to between 8 and 10 feet. Meanwhile, the bus lane will be moved from the curbside to an offset lane, with parking separating it from the curb.


more:
https://www.amny.com/transit/constru...us-bike-lanes/

[Nouvellecosse]

Alan... is not impressed.


• Video Link