State of our sign posts

Barney224

As I travel around the country I can't get over the state of our sign posts!

The amount of signs I see that are not positioned correctly, completely faded, rusted, inconsistent, pointing the wrong direction, or even missing, is astounding. Do County Councils have any policy of checking/replacing sign posts?

I'm not implying that the state of our signs contributes to road fatalities or accidents, but it's a poor reflection of the Dept of Transport's road safety campaign when they can't even maintain the basic level of signage on our roads.

Alun

I get the impression maintenance is a dirty word in Ireland, and not just in relation to road signage. Build it and forget it seems to be the motto.

Kimbot

Seen a load of the motorway signs on the M7 and M8 were blown away in the recent weather. Probably waiting for good dry weather before they go out and replace them.

loyatemu

Alun wrote: »

I get the impression maintenance is a dirty word in Ireland, and not just in relation to road signage. Build it and forget it seems to be the motto.

Bang on - except on motorways and N roads (which are centrally managed, or contracted out). Councils seem to have no monitoring or maintenance programs in place.

I've found Wicklow CC will fix something (eventually) if you tell them about it via FixYourStreet but you'd think they could periodically send someone along the R roads at least to check for issues and powerwash the green slime off the roadsigns.

chewed

do councils ever look at FixYourStreet? I've added a few complaints/suggestions and have heard nothing back!

As for the road signs around the country, I couldn't agree more....they're a disgrace in some parts.

jrar

Barney224 wrote: »

As I travel around the country I can't get over the state of our sign posts!

The amount of signs I see that are not positioned correctly, completely faded, rusted, inconsistent, pointing the wrong direction, or even missing, is astounding. Do County Councils have any policy of checking/replacing sign posts?

I'm not implying that the state of our signs contributes to road fatalities or accidents, but it's a poor reflection of the Dept of Transport's road safety campaign when they can't even maintain the basic level of signage on our roads.

"Shure, tis only a small country and doesn't everyone know their way around it - and shure, if they get stuck, can't they stop and ask someone" (official policy)

Victor

There is the newish Road Management Office http://www.rmo.ie/ - an NRA for regional and local roads.

I worked on this document: http://www.rmo.ie/ipag-document.html

There is a strong level of dysfunction in some areas between what was built, what was recorded, what is there now and what should be there.

---

I use this a few times per month: http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-your-council/isupport

I was woken at 5am one stormy night to a sign outside blowing in the wind - one of the two brackets on it had come loose. I phoned traffic control to report it. At lunchtime, when I thought to look at the sign during the 'cold light of day', they had it already fixed.

The lessons:
* Let people report issues in a meaningful manner.
* Get the message from the public to the people doing the actual job with as few steps as possible in between, so the massage doesn't get lost.
* Action the issues.
* Have a means of tracking issues.

chewed

So, basically it's being left up to the public to monitor road issues across the country? And councils won't invest in any monitoring?

irishgeo

all the rods signes in mayo have a sticker on them. Seen crews washing them as well.

Kevwoody

irishgeo wrote: »

all the rods signes in mayo have a sticker on them. Seen crews washing them as well.

All N roads have an ongoing sign maintenance contract to clean and rectify defects, which is carried out all year round.
The R roads are however, a disgrace, with local authorities installing signs incorrectly and never looking near them again.

Victor

chewed wrote: »

So, basically it's being left up to the public to monitor road issues across the country?

Not completely, but you know help yourself. Councils will never be able to compete with the number of eyes that the public has.

And councils won't invest in any monitoring?

The idea is that they would. However, they need to be encouraged.

It's a matter of resources, making the best of what they have and meeting as many demands as possible.

Same as all parts of govt, Coco's have seen their staffing levels drop over the last 8 years.

Now consider what is a priority for the people living in the Coco area.

As an example, in County Galway alone there is over 6,000km of roads.

You'd be hard pushed to find many to agree that sending someone driving that distance to look at signs etc on a regular basis for "monitoring" purposes, is a good use of the limited available resources.

The smart thing is to let the locals report issues and give focused maintenance where its highlighted as required

chewed

A lot of the signs I see that are in a mess are on main/busy R and N roads, so there's no excuse for councils to ignore these!

Gonzo

all our road signage needs to be looked at and improved, its a mess.

Several things I can think of would make an immediate improvement:

1 - fix alignment of all text, some places its centered, some places its not, some places uses a mixture of both and looks even worse.

2 - English and Irish text too similar, same colour and can be too much information. The Irish should be changed colour and made smaller.

3 - English text on signs should be normal case and not all upper case, easier to read.

4 - yellow backgrounds with black text behind important places such as airports, ports, hospitals etc.

sdanseo

Gonzo wrote: »

all our road signage needs to be looked at and improved, its a mess.

Several things I can think of would make an immediate improvement:

1 - fix alignment of all text, some places its centered, some places its not, some places uses a mixture of both and looks even worse.

2 - English and Irish text too similar, same colour and can be too much information. The Irish should be changed colour and made smaller.

3 - English text on signs should be normal case and not all upper case, easier to read.

4 - yellow backgrounds with black text behind important places such as airports, ports, hospitals etc.

It strikes me to be honest that the Irish never really stands out. If anything, they should be of equal priority, with the Irish coming first as is constitutionally and statutorily required. I think the current signs act to "work around" this requirement by putting the Irish first but reducing its prominence by putting it in italics.

Being realistic, the English is what 90% of readers will look for, but there's no harm in protecting heritage either when signs are replaced by attrition.

This was pretty much the jist of this proposal which looked very good but seems to have never materialised: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/new-road-signs-with-parity-for-irish-may-be-introduced-1.1587458

Barney224

Gonzo wrote: »

all our road signage needs to be looked at and improved, its a mess.

Several things I can think of would make an immediate improvement:

1 - fix alignment of all text, some places its centered, some places its not, some places uses a mixture of both and looks even worse.

2 - English and Irish text too similar, same colour and can be too much information. The Irish should be changed colour and made smaller.

3 - English text on signs should be normal case and not all upper case, easier to read.

4 - yellow backgrounds with black text behind important places such as airports, ports, hospitals etc.

I agree with you totally on this, but my original post in this thread was specifically about the maintenance and upkeep of our signage.

BlinkingLights

They also need to use hexagonal or at least non smooth poles or some kind of proper locking mechanism that prevents twisting.

France has very similar rural signs but the posts are grooved so neither vandals nor the wind can twist them out of line.

This stuff isn't rocket science!!

Barney224

... and stop using finger post signs altogether on main roads! They're fine in towns and cities to indicate local attractions, but they always end up being turned the opposite direction the main routes!

Mint Sauce

There's still an old 30mph sign somewhere in Sligo Town.

Donal55

No staff. Top heavy with engineers, planners, technical and clerical staff. Very few gen operatives.
Too many chiefs.

BlinkingLights

Mint Sauce wrote: »

There's still an old 30mph sign somewhere in Sligo Town.

There were weird 55km/h signs put up in a couple of places in Cork City a long time ago, perhaps during the 1980s? I think some of them were still there at the skew bridge on the Lower Glanmire Road. Could possibly still be there.

Seems Cork Corporation jumped the gun and went for metric speeds a few decades early.

spacetweek

I've noticed a huge improvement in my drives around the country in the last 5 years. N and R roads have double-poled large signs everywhere I go, though possibly it varies by county. The mile signs are gone. Only minor issues these days:

- Obstruction by overgrowth
- Occasional finger posts still seen on R roads (these are ok on L roads)
- Cleanliness - mud and fungus
- Sometimes signs placed on the far end of a junction so you see it too late - advance sign needed

L roads don't really need signage as most of them are only for access.

Agree that councils cannot realistically survey the entire 100,000 km road network. I expect N and R to be surveyed. The public can report the rest.
An idea would be to expand the ID stickers the poles have to say something like "Report an issue with this sign. Text (phone number) and quote the above ID code"

Oh and hire more staff so the workload is manageable.

sdanseo

Don't forget obstruction by other poles. I've driven around Stephen's Green a million times and I still don't know what's actually written on this one :P

chewed

That doesn't even look like a proper sign! Is it a temporary sign for Luas works?

sdanseo

It's for the new road layout that's been like that for over a year.

Not the best example as not a permanent sign but I've seen a few others with similarly stupid placement.

BlinkingLights

Some of the cycle signs in Cork block traffic lights and so do some of the parking ones.

chewed

I started a similar thread on inconsistent signage last year! - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057573448

BlinkingLights

I think we should have moved to standard European signage years ago. I have no idea why we are using a hodgepodge of US and European signs along with quite a few of our own home brew designs.

For example, a P in a red circle means NO PARKING to most Europeans but we use it as Parking and it is still going up on new signs all over the place, despite the fact it's supposed to be a blue and white sign at this stage.

Taxi ranks here mean "No taxis" to most Europeans. Word "TAXI" in a red circle is commonly used.

A french driver I know was stopped in a pedestrian area here as she saw a pedestrian in a red circle, and assumed it meant that there was a ban on foot traffic here!

How the hell we came up with the exact opposite meaning for a European sign is beyond me.

There's also occasionally inconsistency with local authorities placing signs ahead of junctions and at junctions.

So, in some instances you see a sign like

"<<< Anytown"
(and you assume it's an immediate turn, but it's not, it turns out that it's actually been placed ahead of the junction)

Other local authorities place these at the junction on the far side of it, so you're typically turning in front of the sign.

"<<<< Anytown 1km" would make sense..

Meanwhile, in Cork City we seem to have several junctions that are setup as if they have fly-lights but there are no light heads with an arrow on them installed.

So what happens is you get a full green, but the traffic coming towards you is held, as if there were a fly light, and you're expected to psychically know this and turn right across the traffic. Unfamiliar road users will pause, waiting for a gap, and take a few moments to realise the traffic isn't going to flow towards them. Drivers familiar with the junction will often beep the horn aggressively when someone does that.

This is on pretty major junctions too, for example if you're turning onto the South Link dual carriageway from Old Station Road, behind the Garda HQ if you turn left from Angelsey Street, ahead of the Elysian tower. This is a hugely busy 2-lane right turn.

The Tivoli Flyover has a similar mess on the top here traffic is held exiting the Port of Cork but there is no corresponding fly light so you don't know if trucks are just yielding to you out of politeness or are held by a light.

It also creates a dangerous habit where someone will assume this applies on a different junction and turn across moving traffic (as I've seen happen).

And then you've got the illogical placement of signs both for things like the cycle way system, parking and also just information signs in some cases that are placed in the line the line of sight between a driver's position and the traffic lights.

I could understand (but not necessarily forgive) a screw up with a temporary sign, but these are big, permanent signs !!