Mysterious, Unauthorized Stop Signs Found

The town of Cranston, Rhode Island came to the realization that hundreds of stop signs -- almost a third of the stop signs in town -- were not installed by the city. Are these the work of a rogue urban planner?

1 minute read

February 8, 2011, 2:00 PM PST

By Tim Halbur


The existence of the stop signs is still a mystery, but the city has decided that the majority of the unauthorized signs are actually quite good. Yesterday, the council met to consider approving all but 22 of the "undocumented stop signs", which would be slated for removal.

Blogger Kevin Underhill comments:

"A city official said they believed that the mystery signs had been put up by "housing developments over the years" that had not followed the right protocol to codify the signs. Translation: they have no idea. I prefer to think that they all just appeared one night, like crop circles, and so that's the explanation I'm going with."

Thanks to Boing Boing

Monday, February 7, 2011 in Lowering the Bar

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