Highway Signs In Massachusetts Town Have Outline Of Alabama

[matcom]

<snip>

EASTHAMPTON, Mass. -- The highway signs at the intersection of Routes 10 and 141 might make you think you'd taken a wrong turn and wound up in the Deep South.

Amid the staid Yankee surroundings of this western Massachusetts town, the recently installed signs bear the outline of the state of Alabama, squashed to fit the square shape.

The incorrect signs had been up about a week when Joe Pipczynski, Easthampton's superintendent of public works, was alerted by a state Highway Department worker.

Pipczynski spoke to city officials and consulting engineers and came up with a theory.

He believes the contractor opened the federal manual governing the appearance of highway signs. The example there shows a sign for Route 21 in Alabama, including an outline of the state surrounding the numbers. In Massachusetts, the signs are supposed to be simple black numbers on a white background.

Pipczynski thinks the contractor's staffers sent the example to the sign maker and got exactly what they asked for.

But the contractor, A. Pereira Construction Co. of Ludlow, doesn't know what happened.

"We didn't really question it, because the numbers were correct," company spokesman Roger Remy said.

Mike Superson is co-owner of a Big E's Supermarket, which is right next to the signs.

"I looked at them 100 times since they put them up," he told The Boston Globe. "This is the first I've heard of this."

The signs will be replaced as soon as possible, Remy said.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4770735/detail.html

[XemaSab]

1. Oh yeah? Take that!

[Trigger Hippie]

2. Nooooooo.

And I thought I had escaped the Deep South. :(

[Eugene]

3. More likely, they just grabbed what they had on the shelf.

MassHighway has done this for years.
I've seen at least one New York style
sign on Route 2, one (New Jersey?) county
sign an Route 27, and all variation on
Route 1.

[GOPisEvil]

4. The guy's name is REMY?!?!

:tinfoilhat: