Don’t blame French for mismarked road signs in Peoria County

The road goes nowhere
The traveler everywhere
Step by step by step
—Warren Dreibelbis

I know it’s fashionable to complain about infrastructure, but there’s evidence that someone is trying to improve things, if not entirely succeeding.

Take the new sign I just saw on the way home: Road Closed.

To judge by the grammar, with the adjective following the noun, this fancy French-inspired sign may be the first of many in the area.

I look forward to a big Road Santa Fe marker replacing the old one, along with signs for Streets 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, Avenues Hushaw and Bradley, and, of course, Lane Yankee.

Beyond the evocative inverted word order, the new design also innovates in physical positioning. No longer miniaturized and relegated to the side of the road at the top of a pole, the sign is literally right in front of you.

It’s quite obvious
The path of limitations
Can be promoted
—WB

What road is this? How can you miss it?

(Oh, and thanks for noticing the word literally was used correctly three sentences back.)

Not saying there aren’t some obvious issues with the new scheme; I’m sure you’re way ahead of me on this.

The sign isn’t bolted to the road, suggesting that it wasn’t tested in high winds before installation. 

Theft could also become an issue. If a thief can simply walk away with a sign, that sign is likely to be walked away with.

Consider what happens when a sign is firmly attached to the landscape: If a thief has to use a tool to dislodge a sign, it might be enough of a nuisance that the thief will decide to do something else instead, like renew a library card, pay taxes, or stay home and yell at the TV.

(These are only examples of what a thief might do. I don’t know what thieves do when they’re off the clock or why they punch a clock in the first place, given their hours on the job are not billable in the traditional sense.)

She hid words like nuts
That she would steal back later
To serve her sentence
—WB

But the biggest problem with the new signage is someone didn’t pay attention to the details, kind of like when Illinois Central College got a new road sign that pointed the way to something called I.C.C. College, making it twice the college it was the day before.

In the case of Road Closed, this isn’t Road Closed at all—it’s Road Centerville. So now that someone finally paid attention to the words, we’ll need to pay for a replacement sign.

You’re welcome. And my apologies.

(And it’s not like we can just move this sign to the right road. As far as I can tell there isn’t a road named Closed in the county. There might be a road named Closed somewhere else in the state that needs a new sign, but then you’ve got shipping costs to contend with.)

Oh, and Hallock Township might also think about plowing the road while they’re installing the new sign. Someone might get stuck out there.

Or there out stuck get might, which sounds a bit more German than French.

Ihr, die ihr hier eintretet,
lasst alle Hoffnung fahren.
—Dante