Street Signs Sunburned, City Speculates On Cause

EL PASO, TX. – El Paso’s street signs are sunburned! That’s the word from the City Street Department.

The signs that letdrivers know what street they’re driving on are supposed to be a reflective green. But thousands of those signs all over the city are turning black. The city’s still trying to figure out why they did.

The best guess thus far is it has something to do with the green pigmentation. The signs were installed about six or seven years aso. They replaced signs that had the opposite problem, the old signs faded, leaving the white lettering almost unreadable on the almost white background.

The city says since the signs are turning black they’re still readable and not a safety hazard “We haven’t lost the visibility of the signs, but some of the materials are starting to darken, so we’re watching it pretty closely,” said Daryl Cole of the City Streets Department.

The city said there are about 15,000 of these street signs all around town. They said as many as half of them might have to be replaced.

— Written for broadcast by Martin Bartlett

— Edited for the web by Miguel Martinez