Bread Crumbs in Bucks

From the BCCT.

Signs would promote, link towns
By JOHN ANASTASI

Consultants working on the Landmark Towns of Bucks County project Thursday presented a vision of four unique communities linked by a network of related signs.

Some of the signs luring visitors to New Hope, Yardley, Morrisville and Bristol would serve, they said, as “bread crumbs” to lead travelers in. Others would make sure they know where they were when they get there.

“The idea is to promote the town and its economic development,” said design consultant Barbara Schwarzenbach, of Philadelphia’s Cloud Gehshan Associates. “Sometimes you drive through a town before you realize you missed it.”

The solution the consultants presented at Bristol’s borough hall Thursday evening starts with signs on roadways surrounding the towns that indicate their direction with arrows and list their distance in miles. Many of those would have to be discussed with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation because they would be set up on state roads.

The boroughs themselves would be dotted with different types of signs. Some, at the gateways, would simply list the name of the town.

Others signs would provide passersby with history, directions to shopping areas, cultural centers or other amenities. While the information would be different with each town, the signs would share the same feel. The colors would be different but the schemes would be the same.

“You want to create a new brand and support that brand,” said Adam Krom, a planner at Wallace Roberts & Todd LLC in Philadelphia.

Krom said the project could establish more than 100 signs between those set up in each town and those erected in their surrounding areas and along a byway that would link the four municipalities using Route 32, South Pennsylvania Avenue and, eventually, Farragut Avenue in Bristol.

“I don’t have any problem with the concept or the color schemes and I like what they’ve done,” said New Hope manager John Burke.

He worried, however, that New Hope already has a large number of signs on its narrow streets and that more could clutter the sight of the town.

“That’s something we’ll have to take a serious look at,” he said.

Landmark Towns obtained $100,000 in state funding plus $30,000 from the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau to fund the consultants’ work, said Donna Boone, regional Main Street coordinator for Landmark Towns.

Preliminary plans are being presented in each town. The next presentation is scheduled for Feb. 10 in Morrisville. A final design should be completed by April. Boone said Landmark Towns is seeking out additional grants to begin phasing in the signs after the project receives the blessing of each town’s borough council.