The City of Saskatoon won’t be reverting back to the classic street sign, after council on Monday voted to not change how roads are identified in new developments.

Board-style street blades -- introduced in the mid-1980s and used at the entrance to a series of lanes, streets, avenues, crescents and boulevards all with the same name -- will continue to dot the city.

The four foot by four foot green signs are an advantage to older drivers and tourists, council heard. Unlike the larger signs, “(the smaller blades) are hard to see and they’re often covered by trees,” said Councillor Ann Iwanchuk.

“It’s dangerous when drivers are spending more time looking to find the street name,” said the Ward 3 councillor, who recently drove around in a number of older neighbourhoods where the traditional signs are still being used.

But the mega-sized boards are flawed, according to a report to the city.

The green signs are cumbersome to install, are bulky, sustain significant damage from the wind, and generally contain more information than a driver can process, explains the report from the planning and operations committee.

For example, in the Evergreen neighbourhood, there is a sign that contains over 10 suffixes, meaning drivers can’t physical process all the information, said city transportation manager Angela Gardiner.

She added that because the city moving away from dead-end streets and towards a more traditional grid road system, the board-styled signs would become impractical.

The issue now heads back to the committee level.

fsuen@rawlco.com

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