Star: Toronto Council approves new street signs

[W. K. Lis]

Everyone: When did Toronto begin putting up those overhead street signs - white on blue at intersections? From pics here they seem to be good for street ID instead of trying to look at a traditional posted sign. I do not remember them from 1990 on back. I do like them for obvious reasons...

-Observation from LI MIKE-

The 905 uses those oversize signs at the intersections, but Toronto seems to use them approaching the intersections. Hopefully, the new small signs should be at the intersections, so that if you get lost in thought waiting at a red light and may need to reorient yourself.

If you are looking for an address, I find the new small signs with the address number on them are more useful than trying to look for a number on buildings.

 

[lead82]

I for one like the large signs at the intersections right next to the traffic lights. It helps drivers, especially those from out of town to not get lost. The old historic signs are great for pedestrians, but even those are mostly damaged and not always present on all 4 corners of an intersection.

These are way better than the tiny blue/white signs that you see in the suburbs at major intersections. You can barely make them out when you're the first car at the light, much less the 10th.

 

[Dan416]

I for one like the large signs at the intersections right next to the traffic lights. It helps drivers, especially those from out of town to not get lost. The old historic signs are great for pedestrians, but even those are mostly damaged and not always present on all 4 corners of an intersection.

These are way better than the tiny blue/white signs that you see in the suburbs at major intersections. You can barely make them out when you're the first car at the light, much less the 10th.

Which suburbs are you referring to? I can't speak for all the 905, but at least in Mississauga and Brampton, and I'm pretty sure in Oakville and Markham as well have the traffic light signs as well. Although out of all of them, I think the Mississauga and Toronto ones are most readable, with Mississauga having your standard Arial/Helvetica font, whereas Toronto has its regular font.

 

[ShonTron]

Toronto uses Clearview on all its street signs now.

Brampton and Mississauga use the same font, just different backgrounds. Do you prefer the blue over the green signage? I don't like the all caps York Region uses.

Clearview is the slowly emerging standard to the FHWA series and used mostly elsewhere for highway/freeway signage.

 

[Anth]

The blue signs seem to offer better contrast for their size, but I don't like York's signs either.

 

[jks]

For some reason, I always found it nice for street sign backgrounds to be a differnt colour in urban/suburban areas.