The street signs of Stamford, CT

[Duke87]

The discussion of street signs in the 2009 MUTCD thread inspired this. I mentioned there were over half a dozen different types of city street sign to be found around town. Well, here they are.

Spec 1:

This is the current general spec for city street signs, dating back to about 2000 or so. They are mixed case and prismatically reflective. Most, like the one seen here, consist of two separate one-sided panels mounted centered on either side of a square post. Some are instead mounted to the sides of utility poles, lampposts, or traffic signal poles - these use a single two-sided panel. As an interesting curiosity, in a couple of places they are hung from a traffic signal span wire.

Spec 2:

A few of the first signs to show up in the new style around the downtown area were blue instead of green. They are otherwise identical to spec 1 signs. (this example demonstrates the side-mounted double-sided panel version)

Spec 3:

Essentially a "beta version" of specs 1 and 2, a few of these showed up on random street corenrs in the late 90's. Like the newer specs, they are prismatically reflective. Like the older spec, they use a single ribbed panel instead of two one-sided panels.

Spec 4:

The old general spec for city street signs, which I would estmate dates back to the 1960's. Many are still in place on side streets, most examples along major roads have been replaced with spec 1 signs. They all caps and mounted on channel posts (if not on something else). They consist of a single non-reflective ribbed panel with letters made of reflective tape applied manually. Due to being custom made by hand, there is some inconsistency in their design. The example here shows the suffix in smaller letters at the baseline. Some signs put the suffix at the top, in full size letters, or even diagonally. Close inspection reveals that the letters aren't always applied 100% neatly. And sometimes they wear off. They're significantly smaller than the newer signs.

Spec 5:

The general spec for city street signs from before spec 4, dating back probably to the 1940's, maybe earlier. These are solid metal, with raised letters part of the sign. They're all caps and completely non-reflective. Only a handful of specimens remain.

Spec 6:

I have no idea if this ever was actually a general spec, all I know is that they must be ancient. They are made of wood, with hand-painted letters. This one (most likely remounted on a non-original post) is one of only two I know of that are still in existence, and the only one that is still actually functioning as the street sign (the other sits on a utility pole covered in weeds, forgotten about, and there is a spec 1 sign on the corner).

Spec 7:

These signs are only found around the downtown area, all are mounted to traffic signal poles. They are reflective and mostly all caps, but there a few mixed-case ones. The spec most definitely originates from the 1970's urban renewal program. Not all of them are that old, however. "Jackie Robinson Way", for instance, was not christened such until the 90's (explaining why it's mixed case, those are the newer ones). No new ones have been installed in the past decade or so, suggesting that the spec has been retired.

Spec 8:

These are brand new, the first ones having been installed in 2008. All currently are in or around downtown. Overhead signs mounted to the traffic signal mast arm. At night, they are backlit. Unfortunately, they're set in Clearview...

[Roadmaestro95]

Wow this is interesting...they have almost the same formats as the town of Huntington and Babylon on Long Island, NY

[Alps]

Livingston, NJ has had at least seven specs that I know of, not including overheads (which are all on county or state highways). The first six should all be gone now (white on black, black on white cast iron, black on white embossed, white on green embossed, a one-off variant with a smaller DR than the street name, white on green reflective). The current one is white on dark green, large size, MUTCD standard except the color (far too dark).

[nyratk1]

Wow this is interesting...they have almost the same formats as the town of Huntington and Babylon on Long Island, NY

Somewhat with the new Stamford specs for the newer Babylon signs, not really any of these with the older Babylon or Huntington specs, except for Spec 5 in B&W for old Huntington signs.