U.S. Congressman Chip Cravaack introduced H.R. 2442, the Rural County Mandate Relief Act, which would eliminate the federal mandate that states and local municipalities must keep their road and street signs bright enough to meet federal government brightness standards. The bill allows the local governments to decide when signs are replaced.

“State and local governments are still struggling under the weight of lower revenues brought on by the recent recession,” said Cravaack. “Any mandate from Washington forcing municipalities to unnecessarily replace perfectly adequate street signs hurts their ability to effectively spend scarce taxpayer dollars elsewhere. State and local governments are perfectly capable of deciding when their signs need to be replaced and how best to pay for any new signs.”

 Koochiching County Highway Engineer Doug Grindall said the cost for signs on just the county road system was $44,000.

“Keep in mind that it is just material costs,” he noted. “Installation for an employee’s time, vehicle driving to the site, Gopher State One Call (where the sign posts are also replaced) would cost as much or more than the sign.”

The bid for about 200 signs on the state aid system was more $74,000, according to Grindall.

“Multiply this figure times the number of signs on state highways, county and municipal state aid highways and streets, township roads, and other local systems and the amount must be out of sight,” Grindall said. “This is money that could probably be better spent on upgrading and improving these roads.”

The bill has the support of numerous mayors and council members across the 8th District, according to Cravaack. One such legislator, Steve Biondich, an Aurora City councilman, said H.R. 2442 “is exactly what we need… getting rid of silly unfunded mandates.” Based on a conservative estimate, state and local municipalities will be forced to spend at least $37.5 million over the next 10 years to meet the current federal mandate on sign brightness.

Grindall said tough economic times for local governments make the mandate hard to meet.

“(The sign) amount is not possible for a budget that is requested to cut every year — not increased,” said Grindall. “An alternative that I considered was replacing signs by area to spread the cost out over several years.”

Grindall said the idea behind the sign brightness program “is good as our population is aging and night vision for those of us that are older need the brighter signs. However, I received complaints that the 911 signs that we placed a couple years ago were too bright. Those sign faces would meet the new federal mandate.”

According to Grindall, the program involves the retroreflectivity of the signs, which refers to the property of a traffic sign to reflect light back to the motorist. Retroreflective traffic signs are used to increase sign visibility at night. The sign faces degrade over time. When the retroreflectivity falls below a certain level, the sign face needs to be replaced. Maintaining the sign retroreflectivity is important, according to the program, since nighttime fatal crashes occur approximately three times as often as daytime fatal crashes.

Compliance dates of the program are as follows:

• January 2012 — all agencies will have to establish a sign maintenance program that can regularly address the new minimum sign retroreflectivity requirements.

• January 2015 — all agencies must comply with the new retroreflectivity requirements for most of their traffic signs that have been installed, including all red or white “regulatory” signs (such as stop signs and speed limit signs), yellow “warning” signs, and green/white “guide” signs.

• January 2018 — all agencies must comply with the new retroreflectivity requirements for overhead guide signs and all street name signs.