Hoping to get signs announcing the creek name at every residential street crossing in the County

A memo that we submitted for the Board meeting this Tuesday:

TO:	Board of Directors and Staff		FROM:	Brian Schmidt, Richard Santos, Nai Hsueh
SUBJECT:		Directing research to place creek signs on all residential street crossings in the County	DATE:	June 7, 2013

 

Using the model of the well-known and popular signage for storm drains, “Don’t dump – drains to Bay,” we request that the Board direct staff to research and return with a proposal to put into place either plastic sign, metal sign, or painted stencil-style identification of the creek name, for every residential street creek crossing in Santa Clara County, with the goal of completing the entire program Countywide by end of Fiscal Year 2015.

Creek and watershed identification are critical to community support for District initiatives to enhance our local watersheds. Many residents don’t know that even a trapezoid, concrete channel in their neighborhood could be a once and future living creek ecosystem. Identifying the creeks by name will help people realize what they have now, help them understand the upstream and downstream connections, and motivate them to support enhancing their watershed.

Plastic and metal signs are clearly preferable to stencils and may be appropriate for more prominent crossings than residential street crossings. While we consider plastic and metal signs preferable to stencils, we suggest that all three be researched for identifying creek crossings for cost-comparison purposes.

Many prominent, beautiful, and more expensive alternatives exist compared to stenciling creek names on crossings. We suggest stenciling only for residential streets, not bigger arterial roads that deserve more prominent signage. Staff research on this should consider offering cities and the County a chance to provide matching funding if they wish to enhance the signage in their jurisdiction – for example, funding covering the cost differential between stenciling and metal signs, or between metal signs and other signage proposed by a city or the County.

Staff research should consider signage being either just the creek name, creek and watershed name, or a short additional message – for example “Don’t litter, this is AAA Creek”. Research should determine the program’s cost for either stenciling or metal signs. Research should consider the process of obtaining permission from cities and the County to place signage on the bridge structures, or consider signage adjacent to the bridges on District-owned access gates.

This proposal follows upon Director Santos’ Board Member Request on the issue. The Board and the District has a longstanding interest in signage and community awareness, and we urge the Board to begin the research that can make this happen.