Haiku Street Safety Signs Unveiled By NYC DOT, Safe Streets Fund (MAP)

Using money from drunk driver fines, the NYC Department of Transportation has created 144 special new street signs featuring colorful artwork and safety messages written in haiku.

"Curbside Haiku," was created in partnership with the Safe Streets Fund, an advocacy group, and features 12 designs (pdf) from artist John Morse. The tongue-in-cheek warnings (Cyclist writes screenplay / Plot features bike lane drama / How pedestrian) each focus on a different transportation mode and are placed at high-crash locations near cultural institutions and schools across the city.

"We're putting poetry into motion with public art to make New York City's streets even safer," said Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. "These signs complement our engineering and education efforts to create a steady rhythm for safer streets in all five boroughs."

According to Safe Streets, "Half of the signs will be hung in pairs, with the image and text from its accompanying haiku. The other half will feature an image with a QR code that lets New Yorkers discover the safety message via their smartphones."

This isn't the first time the NYC DOT has gotten creative with its signage. Earlier this year the department unveiled speeding signs featuring skeletons.

The haiku signs will only be around until next Fall so if you want to give a special street safety message to someone for Christmas or a birthday or just because, you can buy posters here. All proceeds go to Safe Streets.

Check out the designs and a map of the locations below:

Curbside Haiku and Map

Comments

[Suburban Haiku]

07:40 PM on 12/03/2011

Here's the suburban version, from Suburban Haiku (www.suburbanhaiku.com):

[children crossing] Dear Honks-at-the-Kids, / When they panic like squirrels do / they don't clear the way.

[residental speed limit] You're so important! / Why else would you drive so fast / when you leave for work?

[speed enforced by camera] Rats. A speed camera / and the limit's 25. / Hope my picture's good.

[stop, four way] At a 4-way stop / I stare down the other cars / with my mean mom face.

[pedestrian crossing] My son texted friends / who were walking down the street, / "Get a car, hobos!"

[F Doyle Dreadnaught]

04:03 PM on 12/03/2011

Keep Hope and Mystery

Alive.

[F Doyle Dreadnaught]

04:00 PM on 12/03/2011

I magi n anything

sEA everything

LOVE.

[madcityy]

02:43 PM on 12/02/2011

more crapppppppppppppppppp from nyc moronsssssssssssssssssssss

[TAIsabel]

11:27 PM on 12/01/2011

BS! If you want to make NYC streets safer for pedestrians, you need to do the following:

1. Delay the green light for cars making a turn onto the crosswalk for at least ten seconds after the pedestrian green light.

2. Fine any car violating the crosswalk delay signal or threatning pedestrians with a $500.00 and two points on the license. Driver's license is revoked after the third like offense.

3. Set up cameras to take photos of all crosswalks.

4. Fine any pedestrian that crosses a street or Avenue against the light with a $500.00 ticket.

5. Fine any bicycle that runs a red light or goes against trafic with a $500.00 fine and possibility of having the bicycle impounded after three offenses.

Feel free to add your suggestions.

[Frippertronic]

05:41 AM on 12/02/2011

Everything but 4...

[F Doyle Dreadnaught]

04:08 PM on 12/03/2011

Definitely Definitely 1.

I feel like we all narrowly miss getting plowed about 5 times a day.

[TAIsabel]

07:33 PM on 12/03/2011

I was already plowed down as I stepped onto the crosswalk as the pedestrian green light came on and an airport service van decided to make a fast, sharp right turn onto Second Avenue to beat the pedestrians crossing. He did not see me, knocked me down with his side view mirror, kept driving and drove over my foot.

For the first time in my life I am suing. I am not putting up with this crap anymore.

[jackdaniel58]

04:19 PM on 12/01/2011

New York is so cute- makes me want to puke.

[TAIsabel]

11:29 PM on 12/01/2011

That must be the effect of the Jack Daniels'.

[ludichris212]

09:08 AM on 12/02/2011

Cute? You must have never been there...

[MahatmaCoat]

03:52 PM on 12/01/2011

These are cute and artistic and make me smile, but at the end of the day the DOT of NYC has spent $25,000 of taxpayer money on small signs that few will actually see. Without a doubt this is a waste of taxpayer money. Instead of spending 25-thousand on road repairs, etc, they put up kitschy signs. Great. Janette Sadik-Khan is a failure.

[Frippertronic]

05:43 AM on 12/02/2011

They funded it with DUI fees. But I do see your point.

BTW... 25 grand might fill one pothole here.

[ludichris212]

09:09 AM on 12/02/2011

It wasn't taxpayer money; it is money collected from fines charged to drunk drivers, which makes me wonder "Why only $25K?"

[RichardWad]

01:05 PM on 12/01/2011

Nice flashy signs are the solution? Ha! Right! Unless they have a plan that includes keeping New Jersey drivers out of Manhattan, pedestrians will be just as vulnerable as they've always been...

[bigshotprof]

08:12 AM on 12/01/2011

Outer burrough folks
leave Manhattan as it is
tiny mayor says so

[truly moderate]

03:12 AM on 12/01/2011

And to think it wasn't paid for by the tax payers. Art truly can serve a pramatic purpose! Great stuff!

[MahatmaCoat]

03:54 PM on 12/01/2011

How are fines collected from drunk drivers not tax payer money? Please explain. Please also try spotting one of these small signs and actually read it while walking around NYC. I think they'll cause more accidents than they'll reduce.

[ludichris212]

09:15 AM on 12/02/2011

Fines are revenues collected by the police or city agencies levied against parties for infractions of laws the party's actions have violated.

Taxes are monies collected from residents and business in the form of sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes, etc.

Does that clear it up for you, Mahatma?

[mivogo]

10:50 PM on 11/30/2011

I read the haiku...
Biker veers onto the sidewalk...
Sayonara world.

www.newyorkgritty.net

[PALEOLOGOS DRAGASH]

09:07 PM on 11/30/2011

I don't see the haiku for the pedestrian-beating cops. Nor the one for the pepper spraying cops. Can someone please come up with one?

[bigshotprof]

08:18 AM on 12/01/2011

eyes red like sunset
first amendment first to fall
rest like lemmings leap

[jamekir]

08:33 PM on 11/30/2011

Excellent! Colorful signs curbside at high-crash areas. Creating distractions for both pedestrian and motorist alike should add to the harmonious zen-like flow of these two entities as they interact in their joyous but hazardous dance.

[Return of PlayFair]

06:37 AM on 12/01/2011

And that third sentence is rather poetic, itself.

[bagelmart]

08:21 PM on 11/30/2011

"The other half will feature an image with a QR code that lets New Yorkers discover the safety message via their smartphones."

Oh sure, just create another distraction. Do you really want pedestrians to read these "safety messages" while jaywalking?

[AcesHighSays]

07:26 PM on 11/30/2011

Yeah, we'll be getting hit by cars as we try to decipher the signs...