City signs for sale

SOUTH PORTLAND — Forced by federal regulation to swap out its street signs for new ones with larger lettering, South Portland is looking to make a little something back on an unfunded mandate.

Noting the frequency with which street signs end up decorating dorm room walls, City Manager Jim Gailey said South Portland will attempt to trade on that demand. As street signs are slowly replaced throughout the city, the old ones will be made available for sale for $10 each on a first-come, first-serve basis at the public works garage.

“If you notice your street sign has been replaced, public works is keeping them all and you can go up there and buy the sign,” said Gailey.

The Federal Highway Administration has given municipalities until 2018 to comply with street sign requirements (or provide an engineering study justifying non-compliance), or else risk the loss of federal road dollars. Updated in 2000, 2003 and again in 2009, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices calls on post-mounted street signs to be a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, with initial upper-case letters ranging from 4 inches (where the speed limit is 25 mph or less) to 8 inches (40 mph or more) and the rest ranging from 3-6 inches, again depending on posted speed limits.

Letters indicating the road type (e.g. street, avenue, lane) may range from 2.25 to 3 inches tall, except on signs hung over travel lanes, where all letters must be 9-12 inches in height, again in a mix of upper- and lower-case letters. All signs and letters must also be made of “retroreflective” material in specific colors.

Gailey said the city purchased a machine to make the larger signs two years ago for $25,000 but has largely delayed replacement until now.

“We had some delay due to the fact the federal DOT was working through the requirements and we didn’t want to push forward on replacing signs when the regulations could have changed again,” said Gailey. “We started to roll out some signs during the summer of last year, but this is a big job and we ask a ton from our one-man sign shop already, so we can’t just focus on these signs.”

According to Public Works Director Doug Howard, each new street sign costs “approximately $35” to make. Although an exact inventory has not been taken, he estimates that roughly 1,000 street signs need to be replaced across the city before 2018.

“We will continue to chip away at the work,” said Gailey.