Street signs have a life expectancy and need to be changed every 20 to 25 years. Like anywhere else, Garland residents and visitors need to know what intersection or street they’re at in order to get to their destination.
But in a recently launched campaign to install 730 street signs at traffic signal intersections, the city is also installing a sense of pride.
“Garland Texas” and the city’s wireframe black logo is prominently featured on all the new street signs. The first phases of the project are being rolled out along intersections of Belt Line Road, including Belt Line’s iterations as First Street and Broadway Boulevard.
Signs on Garland’s major arterial streets were last replaced in a 2000-05 campaign. Downtown Garland was later highlighted by a black background on street signs, rather than green. That will still be the case, but because the downtown signs are newer, they’ll be the last to be replaced.
Two-person crews are changing signs at two intersections per day, weather permitting, blocking only a lane or two of traffic at a time.
While full implementation will take most of 2024, city leaders are anxious to spread the new look to all portions of town. Belt Line was chosen for the first installations because of its unique and lengthy path from the western city limit with Richardson to the southern city limit at Mesquite. The next corridor to be highlighted, State Highway 66/Forest Lane, will similarly broaden the signs’ impact, dissecting Garland from east to west.
Once the major streets are done, smaller signs throughout residential neighborhoods will be replaced. Those too will feature the city name and logo. There are more than 10,000 street identifier signs in Garland and capacity for Transportation Department crews, who are also taking care of the city’s regular workload, is about 1,300 to 1,400 signs per year.
Information and photo provided by city of Garland.