Monday, November 15, 2010

A Cambridge Street stitch in time

While most street signs are attached to their posts with metal straps, some of the new blue signs have been attached with bolts driven directly into the wooden pole. While this gives a cleaner look, the signs seem to be prone to coming down. Here's one in Old Ottawa East that fell down at Echo and Graham, which looks like it was damaged in the fall:

While the City builds its own signs in-house the cost of a new sign can come to a few hundred dollars once you factor in installation. In the meantime, navigation is more difficult for people who have no sign to see (and Ottawa has very high standards for signage, compared to what I saw in Montréal).

I recently noticed the street sign for Cambridge Street North at Arlington was coming loose from its post. I called 3-1-1, but the sign was not repaired a couple of weeks later and getting worse.

I then e-mailed the City near the end of October and received a reply from 3-1-1 within three days. On the fourth day, I noticed the sign had been repaired.

For the minimal cost of sending out a crew with a ladder and socket wrench, the City saved the cost and time to make and install a new sign.

1 comment:

  1. 311 is actually a really helpful service, and I am continually impressed with how they react to inquiries.

    - A

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