Joe, a local UPS deliverer, became animated last week when asked about street signs in West New York.
“A lot of the signs are faded and old,” he said. “In fact, I am going to be talking to the safety department at UPS about Polk Street. It’s one-way, but people always drive down it the wrong way because of the signs.”
Not a good thing for someone who navigates a 20-foot-long truck through the narrow streets of West New York. Signage issues came up in a Union City meeting last week, but they are especially relevant in West New York, where many streets are missing signs.
For approximately the entire length of Bergenline Avenue in West New York, there is not one sign indicating a cross street. And should anyone find themselves on Palisade Avenue (which runs north/south) in the 50s, don’t expect to see signs for cross streets, either.
According to West New York Town Administrator Richard Turner, there is a reason for the lack of signs on the Bergenline, a popular shopping district.
Said Turner, “We’ve had a lot of construction at the intersections on Bergenline Avenue. We’ll be putting up new signals, and when these lights are up, the street signs will be placed on the arms of the traffic lights.”
Continued Turner, “The problem with Bergenline is that we didn’t want to put [the signs] in the traditional spots because they are really hard to see.”
In many towns in Hudson County, the old method of signage persists on some street corners: street signs on the corners of buildings. Many of these signs are faded by a century of weather and blocked by awnings and other signage.
Turner also said West New York is in the process of completing a survey of all the interior streets and evaluating which streets need new signs to replace old ones and which streets don’t have signs at all.
Said Turner, “The goal is to have the signs in the inner streets done by the middle of [next] spring.”
The Reporter took a driving tour of West New York and came upon a veritable plethora of streets that had no signs, in all areas of town. The problem lessens the further east one travels.
One mail carrier said he doesn’t have any problems with signage, but his route takes him from the high-rises of Boulevard East west to Park Avenue. It is this area that is flush with street signs.
On the west side of West New York (towards JFK Boulevard), signs have taken a vacation on the corners of 56th (near Miller Stadium) and 59th and Jackson as well as 67th and Jackson.
Moving west over to Jefferson Street, signs were missing at 56th, 57th, 58th, and 59th and Jefferson streets as well as the corner of 67th and Polk.
And according to a local crossing guard (who wished not to be identified) who has been in West New York for years, the problem is one of placement.
Said the guard, “The reason they’re missing is that the guys put them in then realized that they were too close to the corner, so they came back and took them out.”
Exactly why they weren’t replaced is anyone’s guess.
However, the unidentified guard indicated that West New York is not alone in this unique problem. “I think you’ll find that in any town in Hudson County, there are missing signs,” she said.
Union City
Upon further inspection, the problem does also exist in other towns like Union City. At a recent Union City commissioners’ meeting, Mayor Brian Stack, while in a discussion about the city’s UEZ (Urban Enterprise Zone), said there was a signage problem in the city and pledged to do something about it. A cursory glance through the tight streets of Union City demonstrated that while some intersections do lack clear signage, the issue is less of a problem in Union City than in West New York.
At a recent city event, Stack acknowledged that there have been complaints, “especially about Bergenline Avenue. We’re pushing hard to correct that.”
At the same event, Union City Commissioner Michael Leggiero told an interesting story that illustrates perfectly why accurate street signs are so important.
Said Leggiero, “Years ago, my father had a heart attack and he lived on 17th Street. But that street had been renamed ‘Winters Street’ [after Green Bay Packer Frank Winters, who was from Union City]. Our ambulance corps knew where the street was, but the paramedics [coming from Jersey City Medical Center] didn’t. It took them an extra 10 minutes or so to get there.”