The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
Atlantic Avenue is the city's quintessential waterfront thoroughfare, but one block west is its less attractive cousin. And Pacific Avenue just got uglier, according to some resort leaders.
Virginia Beach's new pedestrian warning signs are eyesores, said Mike Eason, the city's resort manager.
"It looks like you're driving through a construction area," Eason said at a meeting of the Resort Advisory Commission's transportation group.
The lime-green signs with flashing lights are atop wooden posts. They pop out in a landscape of light poles and sign posts painted the official steamship-gray color of the resort area.
These signs are meant to draw attention and warn drivers about pedestrians, said Bob Gey, a city traffic engineer. The wooden posts had to be sturdy enough to support, in a windy area, the sign and a 40-pound solar panel that powers the flashing light.
The city has put up 14 of the signs on Pacific Avenue and eight on Shore Drive, with the federal government picking up most of the $66,000 cost.
City traffic officials targeted th e two corridors because that's where drivers most often hit pedestrians. According to the latest city data, from January through June 2008, two pedestrian accidents occurred on Pacific Avenue and another two nearby. Last Memorial Day, 30,000 people crossed Pacific.
Billy Almond, a private landscape architect and a member of the city's Resort Advisory Commission, said he understands the need for the safety signs but wishes they were more attractive. City leaders worked hard and spent money to raise aesthetic standards at the resort, and these signs fall short, Almond said. He suggested wrapping the poles in plastic dyed in the steamship-gray tint.
City traffic officials will look at the cost and effectiveness of the plastic wrap.
But with city departments facing a 15 percent budget cut next year, money for that type of cosmetic improvement is tight, said Brian Proctor, a traffic engineer who is shepherding the project.
Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121. deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com
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You think the sign is ugly ?
The new warning signs are not nearly as ugly as what the intersection of 11th St. and Pacific looked like this past July when my 14 year old niece decided to take my dog for a walk and was hit by a speeding truck while she was in the middle of the crosswalk going to the beach. My dog was was killed and she spent a week in Kings Daughters Hospital. The man who hit her also had to be taken to the hospital because he was so upset. She is physically OK now but she still suffers mentally about our dog. Her family is from Texas where pedestrians do have the right of way when you are in the middle of a crosswalk. I’m sure tourists who come here from other States are under the same impression. Evidently that doesn’t apply here in Va. Beach. If those signs will prevent just one person from being hit at this intersection it is worth it. My neighbors, friends, and family all requested that one of the signs be installed at 11th St and am very thankful to city staff for installing them. The sign is ugly? Well if you witness someone being run over and thrown in the air 20 feet you will have a different opinion of what ugly really is.
These Signs Fit Right In
When considered critically, the supposedly offending signs are just part of the larger landscape here at the Beach. How many utility poles exist along Pacific, thence Atlantic north of the Cavaler, maybe a thousand, and most of thsse lie within three feet of the edge of pavement. How many no parking signs, how many other signs for this and that purpose? If drivers accepted their responsibilities under State law, and perhaps dropped the cell phones from their elevated butt-ears, the signs would not have been necessary.
Pedestrians have right of way in marked and lighted crossings.
On the one hand seems like
On the one hand seems like the signs are working - on the other for you people slamming Mike Eason, he's a hell of a good man. It's his JOB to make the Oceanfront attractive - he's the driving force behind Holiday Lights on the Beach, among other things. So when he argues aesthetics it's because he's giving the citizens of VaBch what he was hired for...
I don't believe you people.
I don't believe you people. A car hits a pedestrian or cyclist and you are IRATE and screaming for heads. Think about it: EVERYbody can see these signs! That's the POINT! And, LED signs? Besides the ridiculous expense, the frequent malfunctions and the fact that every church in town has one? They aren't anywhere as visible as these big lime suckers are. I say for once VB has done something RIGHT!
PS
Why hasn't one of you blamed this on the President?
We were waiting for the bad
We were waiting for the bad spellers to instigate it first. Took you long enough!
looks like va. beach is
looks like va. beach is doing it right. if it gets the attention of pedestrians and motorists, they have it right. one death or crippling justifies these signs.
If it's ugly, take it down
Oops. I guess that would pretty much encompass everything in the "resort strip". Resort strip. What a joke. They should call it the "Sno-cone and T-shirt Shop strip", or the "Concrete Strip". The VB oceanfront is just plain ugly, signs or not. I think it would be cool to see just how ugly they could possibly make it. Just think of the new slogans! "We're waaaaaay uglier than Myrtle Beach", or "Come to VB, it's so ugly, it will make the Philadelphia suburb you live in look great!"
'twas the blight before Christmas
Eyesores at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront?!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tidewater_eyesores/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/tidewater_eyesores/
Help preserve them. Be proud of them.
They make our city great.
Cheap
This is a cheap fix. That's why it's ugly. Putting an LED sign up for every lime green one would look really cool and project info! But cost a fortune.