MTA Wasting Time and Money by Covering Signs with Stickers

[P3F]

If you ever paid attention to the signage in 8th Street station, you might have noticed that until recently, there were two types of pillar signs - tall ones saying 8 Street on two lines, and short ones saying 8 St. A bit of time ago, they covered the short 8 St signs with stickers that mimic the taller signs.

So, let's see. The MTA spent money on:

- Creating the new "8 Street" stickers.

- Sending workers to 8th Street station.

- The workers putting up the stickers.

And multiply this by the amount of stations that received this treatment. 8th Street is just a single example.

And the end result is... signage that isn't any better than what was there previously. Who asked for this? Why is the spending money on useless items such as this, when their financial situation is always seen as unstable?

Photos:

[Around the Horn]

Wow @MHV9218 take a look at this...

Here I was thinking they actually installed a whole new sign

[B35 via Church]

Yeah, I've noticed that on quite a bit of the subway platform signs as well.... I'd say for around the past year or two...

Embossing something like an insignia or a decal can de a dope effect, but when that same effect is unintentionally formed by doing a cover up job on something like subway signage & what not, it comes off rather tacky & quite embarrassing IMO....

[Deucey]

9 hours ago, P3F said:

If you ever paid attention to the signage in 8th Street station, you might have noticed that until recently, there were two types of pillar signs - tall ones saying 8 Street on two lines, and short ones saying 8 St. A bit of time ago, they covered the short 8 St signs with stickers that mimic the taller signs.

So, let's see. The MTA spent money on:

- Creating the new "8 Street" stickers.

- Sending workers to 8th Street station.

- The workers putting up the stickers.

And multiply this by the amount of stations that received this treatment. 8th Street is just a single example.

And the end result is... signage that isn't any better than what was there previously. Who asked for this? Why is the spending money on useless items such as this, when their financial situation is always seen as unstable?

Photos:

Because it's cheaper?

And "8 Street" is easier for someone who's first language isn't English to understand than "8 St".

[P3F]

17 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Because it's cheaper?

And "8 Street" is easier for someone who's first language isn't English to understand than "8 St".

There was no need to put effort into changing the old signage, at all. Half of the pillar signs already said "8 Street", and there are huge tiled signs on the walls displaying "8 STREET".

Also, I'd imagine tourists would focus on the number "8", which is universal across many languages rather than the spelling of the word "Street", which varies greatly by language.

[MHV9218]

Damn this is dumb lol. They've done this at Broadway-Lafeyette and 47-50th, but mostly over damaged signs. That looks to be a fine condition porcelain A-G 8th Street sign. Wasteful, but the sign shop has always produced lousy stuff and management has installed it inconsistently, so not surprised. Still no reason to have removed about 2/3 of the porcelain signage in the subway.

[Lance]

All I have to say to this is "meh". It's apparent they want the pillar signs consistent across the subway, but don't want to go through the hassle of creating new porcelain/matte signs, hence the stickers. I'm actually more annoyed at the half-assed approach here rather than simply replacing the pillar block entirely, but that's par for the course as of late.

Frankly, the days of the AG stragglers are coming to an end. We all know this as they've been replacing the older AG signs across the system with Helvetica ones for decades now, usually when they rehab a station, but sometimes when it's brought to their attention. The MTA Corporate font is Helvetica and has been so since the late '80s. They've been trying to get all of the signs under one font since the official changeover. In fact, it's part of the reason behind the new sign curtains on the R62s.

As for the costs incurred with these modifications, please remember these are all salaried employees who get paid regardless of what they do or do not do. Bergen Street would still make signs and cover up stickers even if it weren't these ones in particular. The workers who installed these stickers would be installing something else or doing something else related to their jobs either at that station in particular or another one that had a task to be completed at the time. Of all the things to be up in arms about, this really isn't it.

[WestFarms36]

I definitely agree. Plus those signs may be replaced completely further in the future, but for now those will do. This isn't a waste of money really... It's not like the workers at Bergen St sign shop are paid per work order, these people are paid regardless of installing a sign or not. If it weren't 8th St, they could probably be elsewhere doing some other type of work, so this isn't something to be going crazy about. It's a sticker after all, and that ain't expensive... upkeep and maintenance shouldn't stop due to economical woes, use that mentality now and you'll end up with a system that's just abhorrent.