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Today's Urban Design Observation: Improvised Road Signage Ballast

By Rain Noe - February 26, 2018

in Urbanism

These are the signs that road crews use in NYC. You don't want a texting driver slamming into a bunch of repairmen, and the bright orange color of these, topped with flags and fronted with cones that have reflective tape on them, fulfill their function of being highly visible.

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These are lightweight and designed to break down nearly flat. You can see here that the flag supports are held in place by simple Velcro straps and can all be folded in for transport.

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One area where the designers fell short is in accounting for wind. To keep the sign from toppling over in a gust, the crew has thrown a bag of Quikrete over the legs. They either had these in the truck or bought it at the hardware store down the street, my guess being that it's the cheapest heavy thing they could buy.

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I knew that bag wouldn't last in the rain, though. The next day I came by to see if it was still there. It wasn't.

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Instead they'd replaced it with paving stones.

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If you were the designer of this object, what would you do differently?

Even if this thing came with a sandbag, it would be easy enough for it to become separated from the unit in transportation or storage. I'd like to see how these things are stored at the depot or wherever. If we had that information we might be able to design a better way to keep this unit together with a ballast, in such a way that they're unlikely to become separated.

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Emily Suzuki

6 years ago

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The most exciting road construction system I've ever seen was in Tokyo - even during the day, set-ups regularly include LED equipped traffic cones, workers wearing vests and hats with synchronized blinking LEDs, trucks with giant blinking LED signs... LED overkill, but it got the job done.

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- Austin Liu
  
  Emily Suzuki
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Japan's specialty is design overkill. I love it!
  
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Rahul Pradhan

6 years ago

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How about some weights at the ends of each leg? The moment induced by the weights would prevent toppling in windy conditions in. The legs could also be folded into the main shaft during transport, like an umbrella.

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Geoffrey Steel

6 years ago

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A couple of interesting facts about these roll up signs: 1] there are standards around them, and they are lengthly; 2] Signs cost anywhere from USD 275 upwards; 3] They do deploy a dual torsion spring which is designed to deal with wind. It's the small box at the base of the mast, where the feet join. Though I'd expect that the overall weight of the unit allows it to be pushed about - either by the wind or vehicles; 4] Ballast plate [approx. 35 pounds -steel and rubber] can be obtained for an additional cost [$120 though discounts for volume]. These plates are stackable. As to storage I have no info, though would expect that they remain on the truck as part of the standard equipment.

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Juan Cano

6 years ago

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A water-filled base? Like basketball hoops in your driveway? They take forever to fill up and drain though.

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  Juan Cano
  
  6 years ago
  
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  water could just be drained right in the street though, decent idea, I like it.
  
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