Are you kidding me?

Anyone who has had the pleasure of walking the future Euclid Corridor from Public Square towards Playhouse Square may have noticed the addition of a few pieces of signage within the past few days.

Talk about ridiculous. While I'm sure the battle to find appropriate places, and sizes, for signage along state routes is one that is hard to fight, why both trying to build a pedestrian and bike friendly, 230 million dollar, brand new transit corridor nicely when you are only going to litter it with signage sized for 65 mile an hour highway traffic (maybe they're going to raise the speed limit to 65 mph, in which case I guess I'm the jerk...).

The picture included with this post, taken this morning (01.16.08), shows the new highway signage located at the intersection of E.4th and Euclid. Is there some off-ramp schedule to plow through the gateway district right onto E.4th? Why in the world would you need to locate a highway sign at the intersection of 4th and Euclid. Especially considering you are a mere few hundred feet from Ontario where there should be directional highway signage. Even more confusing is the fact that as you head east from Ontario to E.9th, there is not one street you would want to take as a shortcut to get to the highway.

The signage, clearly, should be at the intersection of E. 9th and Euclid....oddly enough there is signage there...and it is probably only 1/4 the size of what has been placed at E.4th. I'm sure those who paid for the streetscape study for E.4th will be particularly pleased with this solution to visually overpowering their wonderful (realizing taste is subjective) gateways.


Who is supposed to be keeping an eye on this stuff to make sure things get coordinated so that you don't have a ridiculously scaled sign in a ridiculous location? And I suppose now that it has already been installed on the brand new Euclid Corridor posts, who has the ability to see that the problem is corrected; or at least not repeated?

Considering the massive amounts of private developmpent being triggered by the public dollars invested the Euclid Corridor, I am certainly not trying to suggest the project is not a great step in the right direction for the city of Cleveland. I'm only trying to suggest that when making these positives steps, a more careful attention to the details that separate a good enough streetscape from a great one will make the investments we see happening worth so much more. Demand and plan for the best, the people of Cleveland deserve it.