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Public commenter urges commission to seek exception to preserve all-caps street signs in historic districts
Summary
A lifelong San Francisco resident asked the Historic Preservation Commission to research whether historic districts can be exempted from a citywide switch from all-capital to lowercase street-name signs, saying drivers and residents find lowercase signs harder to read.
Michael Levin, a lifelong San Francisco resident, told the Historic Preservation Commission that he has noticed a program to replace the city’s traditional all-capital street-name signs with lowercase lettering and asked the commission to explore whether historic-district exceptions exist.
Levin said he had "googled" and found references to a federal requirement and widespread negative public reaction online, and he told commissioners that "bus drivers... can't understand it" and that lowercase signs are "more difficult to read" than the existing all-capital signs. He urged the commission to "do whatever is in your power to keep the upper case letter signs" at least within historic districts.
Commissioners did not take formal action on the comment during the meeting. Commissioner Matsuda later asked staff to look into exceptions for historic districts and report back to the commission, linking the public comment to an item for staff follow-up.
The record does not include a staff finding or legal citation confirming a federal mandate mentioned by Levin; his comment was a request that the commission or staff research applicable regulations and any available historic-district exemptions.
