Road Signs

This Christmas, my husband gave me one of the best GPSes as my Christmas gift. He knew I needed a good GPS so badly.

I lived in Munich for over 10 years. On each road, street, avenue, pathway and etc, you can see the large and eye-catching signs in German easily, which tell you what street you are on and in what direction. The signs are always big enough, so that you can clearly see the words on the sign from at least 20 metres away. Of course, near-sighted people don’t count. The signs are double sided. You can see the street name and street direction on both sides. The words are painted with special materials, so even in the darkest of nights the words on the signs are visible.

When I had a trip in Toronto one year ago, I realized Torontonians seemed to build the road signs not for direction but for fun. They seemed to try to hide road signs to test the strangers’ sight and patience. On the first day in Toronto, looking for the road signs was more or less of a game for me. While my husband was driving, I tried to point out where the sign was. Later, aside from the small size of the road sign, I realized another annoying problem. The sign is single sided. At major intersections, the road sign is always facing the side of the street you are crossing but not on the other side. What’s the problem with this? Oh, my goodness, if you stop just in front of the street at the intersection at a red light, you cannot see any of the roadsigns. You can only see the back of the road signs. The only sign which is facing you is right above your head. You cannot see that from inside your car either.

With regard to Toronto road signs, I am speechless. While our municipal government never has enough money to update our signs, we can upgrade our GPS.