Without getting into the interpersonal dynamics of a Williams family vacation, let’s say I’ve spent a lot of time searching out those blue interstate highway services signs.
You know, the ones that tell you what the upcoming exit has in the way of food, lodging and gas.
So I certainly have nothing against informative signage you can read at, well, let’s say 70 mph.
But my eyebrow nevertheless arched — as did quite a few others — when five spiffy new “I Love NY” signs popped up this summer within a few hundred feet of each other on the southbound side of the Northway in Saratoga Springs.
The signs are promoting Taste NY (better yet, taste the food), I Love NY and Path Through History, all part of a massive and centralized effort to promote tourism in the state. They’re upright rectangles, a different shape than standard informational signs that look the same in New York as they do in Massachusetts or Maine. And the logos aren’t easily read at 70 mph.
The five signs installed in Saratoga Springs are among 514 that have been planted around the state, most of them near entrances to the state, at transportation crossroads, or near potential destinations.
In my mind, it raises highway beautification issues. The arc of history isn’t bending the way I hoped when Lady Bird Johnson set out to ban highway billboards in the 1960s.
It turns out the federal government isn’t happy with New York state, although it took good journalism — good print journalism — to flush the truth out of the bushes.
So a hat-tip here to Jon Campbell, Gannett’s Albany bureau chief, for digging into the topic enough to learn the signs may well be illegal under federal highway signage standards.
Not illegal in the anyone going to jail sense — you don’t even joke about that when state government is involved — but certainly there’s a stern look of disapproval on Uncle Sam’s face.
Emmett MacDevitt, a highway safety engineer with the Federal Highway Administration, did a PowerPoint presentation recently to local highway officials in Lake Placid in which he cited the “I Love NY” signs specifically as violating the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
That’s the handy-dandy book that ensures for drivers that all stop signs are red and hexagonal, and overhead interstate lane signs are olive-green with white lettering.
“Branding and promotional” signs are out under the federal manual, MacDevitt said. “The governor’s proposed signing initiatives violate the MUTCD standards and basic principles,” he told the audience.
Campbell reported that state and federal transportation officials had several written exchanges in 2013 and 2014 about the state’s signage plans. In the end, state officials ignored the federal government’s objections.
The matter didn’t really surface publicly, though, until MacDevitt made his presentation in Lake Placid.
State officials aren’t budging on the sign program, which has so far cost the state $1.76 million. They still think the signs are legal.
“These signs, which follow standard specifications, promote tourism and we believe are in full compliance with federal law,” said state DOT spokesman Gary Holmes.
“We view them as a critical element in a coordinated strategic program to promote the state’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry,” Holmes said. “We continue to work with FHWA to ensure any questions are answered.”
The whole thing leaves me wondering what the Federal Highway Administration must think of the giant “I Love NY” logo landscaped into the hillside next to the Clifton Park Northway rest area in 2012, at a cost of $10,000.
I bet they love it as much as I do.