Thank a Bicyclist: The Ubiquitous Street Sign
Where would we be without the humble street sign letting us know where we are, where to make our turns, directing us toward one destination or another, or letting us know from whence we just came.
It has been well documented how bicyclists and their two-wheeled machines spawned a new era of "good roads." Less well known are the early attempts of cyclists to make the roads and streets of the city more easily navigable. In January 1896 during a meeting of the Associated Cycling Clubs of Southern California, with representatives from Ontario, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Redlands and Pomona in attendance, held one of their regular business meetings, where the topic of signboards came up in discussion. L. S. Logan, representative from Riverside, described how the wheelmen of that county took up a petition, and presented it to the Board of Supervisors, requesting that roadway intersections be marked with signboards. More than a thousand people signed, and "as a consequence the county is now well marked up, and each road is supplied with signboards." At that, Judge Holbrook, of San Bernardino (and a (Supervisor for the County), proposed that if the wheelmen of San Bernardino provided a similar petition he would guarantee that "all the county roads of San Bernardino would be marked likewise." (Los Angeles Herald 6 January 1896)
Before the advent of bicycling, trips beyond one's own town were rare. Touring? Only for the very wealthy. Bicycles made such things possible for the regular people, the general populace. Accounts of the earliest bicycle tourists frequently bemoan the dearth of wayfinding apparatus, they were always getting lost, missing turns, back-tracking. I don't know if the actions of the early bicyclists of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties gave rise to a broader, more wide-spread investment in wayfinding signage along the nations streets and roads, or whether if was a simple progression that may have occurred concurrently in other places, but they do seem to have been precursors at the local level.
If you happen to be taking to the road this weekend, on your way to discovering some new place, you may just owe the early bicyclists of Riverside a debt of thanks.
Before the advent of bicycling, trips beyond one's own town were rare. Touring? Only for the very wealthy. Bicycles made such things possible for the regular people, the general populace. Accounts of the earliest bicycle tourists frequently bemoan the dearth of wayfinding apparatus, they were always getting lost, missing turns, back-tracking. I don't know if the actions of the early bicyclists of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties gave rise to a broader, more wide-spread investment in wayfinding signage along the nations streets and roads, or whether if was a simple progression that may have occurred concurrently in other places, but they do seem to have been precursors at the local level.
If you happen to be taking to the road this weekend, on your way to discovering some new place, you may just owe the early bicyclists of Riverside a debt of thanks.
Comments
Post a Comment