John Dales: Issue 595 27 Apr 2012
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Cycling, Pedestrians, Railways, All of UK
Needless. Mindless. Useless Embarrassing.
The public realm is being increasingly degraded and disfigured by pointless signs. They’ve got to go
Exhibit F shows a total of six signs (three for each direction of approach) deployed to give instructions about how to negotiate a single rising/falling bollard.
Exhibit E is within the British Library precinct and principally announces that the fancy materials they decided to use for their public realm were poorly specified. In such a high profile location, this combination of ugliness, obstruction and dishonesty is especially embarrassing.
Exhibit D is a simply ridiculous collection of signs. ‘Road Closed’ would be quite enough on its own, with pedestrians and cyclists being perfectly capable of responding to the temporary circumstances without this ‘help’. Of course, cyclists do not dismount, nor do they need to.
Exhibit C gives a far from welcoming welcome to Maidenhead and is again disingenuous in saying that station authorities are ‘Serious about YOUR safety’. What they’re serious about is claim-avoidance. ‘You can’t say we didn’t tell you’ would be a more honest coda.
Exhibit B is one of several on the modern footbridges within the Merchant Square development in Paddington Basin. In so far as these signs need to be there at all, what they should really say is, ‘Sorry: we designed this bridge badly.’
Exhibit A says it’s important, but it’s not even remotely so. It’s large and sits in the middle of an often crowded overbridge at York station. There aren’t any usable handrails on the overbridge in any case, and passengers are perfectly capable using their own judgement for such decisions.John Dales
You may think I often use this page to ‘go off on one’, but this month I’m in need of a full-on cathartic rant. The issue that’s got me close to seething point is the proliferation of stupid signs in the streets and spaces used by thousands of people every day. Although these signs ostensibly warn us about things we should be aware of or avoid, their chief purpose is to cover the backside of pusillanimous individuals who seem to fear, above all, that they may get blamed...
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