New York To Spend $27.5 Million Uncapitalizing Street Signs 322
250,000 street signs in New York City feature street names in capital letters only, which is not the national standard. Having no other issues on the table, The New York City Department of Transportation has decided to fix the problem and put up proper signs featuring both capital and lower-case letters at a cost of $27.5 million. The Transportation Department hopes to have the job completed by 2018 with 11,000 of the most important improperly capitaled signs fixed by the end of the year. Catastrophe averted.
Auction the old ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I've got a better idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they could give each citizen back... oh. $3.50. Why, you could buy a couple of 20oz bottles of Mt.Dew for that much.
Re:Yeah... (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as the economic woes, seems like as good a way to create jobs as any. It's basically just stimulus money that happens to be taking care of a long term issue at the same time.
Hyperbole, much? (Score:2, Insightful)
FTFA:
"The Federal Highway Administration said the new sign standards improve safety because they allow drivers to identify words more quickly, allowing them to swiftly bring their eyes back to the road."
Yeah, pointless government waste.
Re:Yeah... (Score:1, Insightful)
Because New York City contributes money to the war in Afghanistan. And $27.5 million is really a difference maker there.
Penny wise, dollar foolish. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because who cares if an ageing driver population can quickly scan signs and return their eyes to the road in an urban area, right?
Re:Budget? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called perspective.
People have no qualms whining about the $50 billion the Department of Education is budgeted.
But dare to say the $650 billion Department of Defence budget could get cut a little, you're suddenly weakening the country, giving in to the terrorists and a very very bad man.
Cutting $50 billion out of a $1,000 billion deficit is peanuts, though.
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not buying the argument that the budget can't be cut. And yes, I'd start with the Education Department. It teaches no one and is the primary cause of regulator burden on schools.
And Entitlements should not be off the table. Lots can be done to reduce costs such as phasing in higher retirement ages for SS, take a hard look at the current practice of SS being used as a replacement for welfare, etc.
Other things like a across the board freeze on Federal pay and a freeze on hiring are common sense things to do.
Yes, some things that many people would agree are good would be cut, but there are many, many more things that people agree are good that we don't do now and can't afford to do.
And we probably should close the Supermax prisons. Instead, open a second Gitmo on some island somewhere and make'm live in tents. I'd suggest that they be made to scavenge for food themselves, but I'm sure the ACLU would shit bricks as well as the entire Democratic establishment.
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what phasing in means.
And yes, SS is a Ponzi scheme. All the more reason to ditch it (phase it out) in favor of some kind of plan that relies more of private investment. I shudder to think what I would have saved up if that 6% of my paycheck had gone into a properly managed account (which means not in high risk junk bonds, mortgages, etc.) for the past 25 years.
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Insightful)
60 mph = 88 feet per second.
Say the new signs get your eyes back on the road half a second quicker - that's 44 *less* feet that you've traveled without watching the cars in front of you.
Don't think a lot can happen in that 44 feet you traveled in that extra half second?
Stopping distance for a car going 60 mph (assuming 1.5s reaction time + avg braking distance of ~250 feet, multiple sources found through google report that this seems to be the average consensus, yielding ~350-400 feet as stopping distance on a flat/level/dry surface, for an auto traveling at 60mph.
So that 44 feet is about 10% of your stopping distance - a 10% larger margin of safety every time you look away from the road and read a road sign. That's not trivial, especially when you consider the hundreds of thousands of vehicles travelling around NYC. If it helps prevent 2 minor accidents a day, that's lower emergency services costs, slightly lower insurance rates, less money spent on road repairs, and less money spent on average by people repairing their vehicles. If the science behind the studies is sound, it does add up in the aggregate.
Re:Budget? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that whenever something is wrong in one area, clearly the solution is to not spend any money anywhere else until that problem is fixed?
Re:Yeah... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Budget? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that whenever something is wrong in one area, clearly the solution is to not spend any money anywhere else until that problem is fixed?
Because THIS problem affects ME. Don't you know who I AM?!?!?