SOUTHEAST BOISE, Idaho — We see street signs every day, they give us a sense of where we are and where we're headed. I'm your neighborhood reporter Jessica Davis getting an inside look at how Ada County Highway District makes 40 to 50 street signs every day.
- Ada County Highway District sign shop makes at least 50 street signs a day.
- There are over 140,000 signs in the county, many being installed in new subdivisions or replaced with newer materials.
- If you need a new street sign for your neighborhood, you can contact the Ada County Highway District.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
"I'm basically known as the sign guy, so I make all the street signs in the valley," said Mark Johnson, lead Sign Maker & Designer for the Ada County Highway District.
Mark Johnson and his team of eight at the Ada County Highway District, create, replace and repair street, overhead and custom signs.
Johnson says, "There's someone in the shop that's taking inventory on the old stuff or we're installing new ones such as subdivisions for things of that nature, and real so replacing ones that get ran over."
There are over 140,000 signs in the county, Johnson says they're making as many as 50 street signs a day.
Typically, any newer sign can last 10 to 15 years, unless it needs to be replaced.
Showing me one sign in need of some TLC, Johnson says, "On one side it looks pretty good, but on the other side it looks not very good. We go through the valley replacing all of the types of signs what we're doing is we're replacing them with the newer high [visibility]."
He says it only takes 20 minutes to make a sign, so we made one for West State Street.
"Basically, I print out in this caption up here what I want," says Johnson.
First, you create your template and choose your letters.
Johnson says, "Whichever category that the text fits in will insert it into that template."
Once it's in the computer, that transfers to the plotter which thinly cuts out the lettering.
"This is the part that actually brings the letters out of it, therefore we can see it when we apply it to the metal," says Johnson.
From there the lettering gets put on the reflective sign, after which Johnson applies the lettering to the metal, like a sticker.
"And that pretty much reveals your street name sign," he says.
These signs are then installed in eight different zones across the county.
"There's a street name sign, or a stop sign, or a speed limit sign, or a warning sign that's not doing its job anymore. So, it's maybe faded, maybe cracked, and that's what these guys do when they're going through their zone maintenance. If it hasn't been called in or reported, they'll just hopefully drive by and notice that it's bad, start to do an inventory, and go out and fix it," says Johnson.
