We’ve been on the lookout for Wellesley’s long-promised “wayfinding” signs, and an eagle-eyed Swellesley reader has sent us a photo of one at the Linden Street and Crest Road intersection welcoming people to Wellesley Square.
As we wrote back in August (“Wellesley could soon find its way with wayfinding project”), Wellesley back in 2016, armed with a $10K Massachusetts Downtown Initiative grant, whipped up a committee and hatched a plan for a Branding and Wayfinding Project. The goal was to come up with consistent signage for Wellesley Square as well as Wellesley Hills and Lower Falls, in part to help pedestrians and motorists get around, in part to promote local business and the community at large. The initial batch of signs are in the Wellesley Square and Linden Square areas.
The plan made it through the gauntlet of the Design Review Board and the Board of Selectmen in early 2017, and then things went quiet. But upon checking over the summer, I was surprised to learn that the wayfinding plan lived on. The signs were put on the back burner for a period due to higher priority issues and staffing changes in both the Planning Department and Selectmen’s Office, but now the signs are emerging.
Thirty pieces in total have been installed (some on the same post), as the Department of Public Works was able to get the job done despite frozen ground. The town shared these photos:
Not that these new green, white and gray signs aren’t welcome, but let’s hope the town takes the approach Mrs. Swellesley has loosely enforced in our house: If you bring in a thing, you need to get rid of another thing.
Wellesley is already pockmarked with more than its fair share of signs of both the necessary and unnecessary kind. I recently spotted 3 sustainability-related ones within the span of a couple of blocks in Wellesley (it would seem more environmentally friendly to consolidate them). We recently remarked on winter’s silver lining as well: it’s harder to stick those ubiquitous lawn signs in the ground.
Anyway, welcome to Wellesley, you new signs.
Yay to more signs to help us find our way! But trail signs are not so ubiquitous. Try to follow the Crosstown Trail. If you emerge on the drive for Town Hall from Hunnewell Park, there is no sign to tell you where the trail continues. That trail is the poorest marked trail in town, in my opinion.
Thanks for mentioning Sally, I’m actually on the Trails Committee, so will raise this issue at our next meeting, Bob
Wow, those are very hard to read due to the font choice, the white type on a dark background for the directional signs, and the high-contrast background of the main sign.