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Generations of literate drivers in New York City, for example,
have done a double take when passing a sign reading "Verrazano"
- with a missing "z" - directing traffic to the Verrazzano-Narrows
Bridge, connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island.
In New Jersey, beach-goers may have noticed "Lavalette" with a
dropped "l" on the Route 37 exit for Lavallette. And in Ohio,
it's "Cinicinnati" in an alphabet scramble pointing drivers
toward the state's third-largest city.
In New York, it has taken five decades to get around to
correcting the bridge road signs, which surely have vexed
generations of schoolchildren and their tax-paying parents.
This week New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill to fix
the 54-year-old howler on traffic signs to the bridge named for
Giovanni da Verrazzano, the 16th-century Italian explorer who
sailed into New York Harbor.
The legislation authorizes fixing that typo and nearly 100
others scattered around the state during regularly scheduled
maintenance, New York officials said.
“The MTA expects most, if not all, of the 96 signs identified to
be replaced under a normal schedule of maintenance,” said
Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Jon Weinstein.
The botched name was due to a typographical error, or typo, in
an original construction contract, said Gerard Kassar, chief of
staff for state Senator Martin Golden, a Republican from
Brooklyn who backed the Verrazzano bill.
The contractor who made the error on the recently installed "Cinicinnati"
sign, reported in July on an Interstate 71 ramp in Columbus,
fixed the typo this month, said Matt Bruning, spokesman for the
Ohio Department of Transportation. He had no explanation for the
typo.
"Sign misspellings are relatively rare," Bruning said. "As soon
as it’s discovered, it’s usually corrected fairly quickly."
On the Jersey Shore, officials are wasting little time in
erasing the embarrassing error in the spelling of Lavallette on
a sign directing drivers to the family-friendly beach town. The
original contractor hired by the state will insert a second "l"
in a new sign that should be installed sometime in the next two
weeks, said Judith Drucker, spokeswoman for the New Jersey
Department of Transportation.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in New York; Editing by
Frank McGurty and Dan Grebler)
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