Well, it wasn't really a "stupid federal bill slipped into another bill", it was a straight up regulation change by the DOT and it's fearless leader Ray La Hood, based on numerous independent studies that showed upper/lower case signs were more readable. This was put in place in 2003 when the Federal Highway Department updated it's
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD, which is also online). There's a 15-year time period to get it done by 2018.
Yes, it costs $110 to replace each sign, and NYC has 250,900 street signs, so that means it's gonna cost $27.6 million.
OMG! How stupid. The outrage! NY State tax payers should rise up in revolt!
Oh, yeah, BTW, they routinely replace 8000 signs a year anyway due to wear and tear. So now they'll simply be replacing them with more readable signs with a more readable font and a more uniform reflective protective covering that should make them last longer between replacements.
This isn't just for NYC, tho, it's for all states.
The Clearview typeface was developed by an interdisciplinary team that included traffic engineers, optics engineers, vision experts, type designers, graphic designers and perceptual psychologists. The current Standard Highway Signs (SHS) typefaces date back to 1949 and have their origins in traditional, handmade-by-stencil-and-paintbrush signs.
Compared to SHS Standard Alphabets (Highway Gothic), Clearview provides faster word recognition at increased distances, improved legibility in the same sign footprint, and reduced halo-ing (or overglow) that happens when headlights hit the reflective signs directly causing them to be so bright that they are not very readable.
With a 20 percent improvement in legibility and recognition distance over the 50-year-old Highway Gothic font, the new Clearview typeface gives drivers as much as two seconds of additional reaction time.
The new Clearview font has already been in widespread use by state departments of transportation in Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia, among others. In Canada, the Ministry of Transportation for the Province of British Columbia specifies Clearview for use on its highway guide signs, and its usage has shown up in Ontario on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, and on new 400 series highways in Hamilton, Halton and Niagra. as well as street signs in various parts of the province. The font is also being used on new signs in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec.
