Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs – But Santa Cruz is Looking for a Fix

Mayor Ryan Coonerty said that one day when he drove into town from Highway 17, he realized that the signs directing newcomers around Santa Cruz made no sense.

Vice Mayor Don Lane said the whole city is confusing, not just because it has no straight streets, but because when outsiders look at the ocean, they think they must be looking westward, but they aren't.

City Councilman Tony Madrigal wants multilingual kiosks, and big lighted Jumbotron screens with ads and directions for tourists.

Those were some of the statements from the city's governing board Tuesday night  before it voted unanimously to spend another $200,000 to study how to make Santa Cruz more organized and understandable for outsiders.

John Bosio, a designer with MERJE Environments & Experiences, of West Chester, PA, said better markings can bring business to areas of the city that need it. For example, parents visiting students at UCSC should be able to find the downtown restaurants. He said business went up 30 percent in the waterfront district of Camden, NJ, after the city put up better signage.

He also pointed out that the federal government was requiring cities to have directional signs that conform to certain guidelines by 2015 or 2018, so the city was going to have to spend the money eventually.

Santa Cruz has 240 signs for vehicles and 28 for pedestrians – more than in the downtown of the state's second biggest city, San Diego, with its 1.3 million people and only 263 signs. The clutter of signs was hurting the chances of people finding their way around, said Bosio.

Making his pitch, Bosio said he was warned not to talk about the much maligned oversized River Street sign, which he first thought was the entrance to a strip mall rather than a downtown gateway. The city got an $83,000 federal grant for it, but soon after considered paying $20,000 to get rid of it.

The current estimate for new signs, kiosks and classes for hotel staffs to give better directions for tourists is $1.5 million.