Council hears way-finding presentation

The council will hear a presentation at its luncheon meeting today at the downtown Busch Building about the city’s new way-finding sign program. The program is a joint effort of the city, Urban Districts Alliance, Missouri Department of Transportation, Greene County and other groups.

The program, according to Springfield Senior Planner Hillary Taylor, is intended to aid people in getting around between the city’s major attractions and most popular destinations, including the universities, museums and major shopping centers.

Following the presentation, council members will take a bus tour to areas where signs are located.

“We’ll be taking a tour so they can see the signs in the environment and make a determination about how successful they think the system will be, so we as a city can decide how much we want to invest in the program,” Taylor said.

The program is estimated to cost about $600,000, comprising about 200 signs around the city.

Many groups around the area think the program is a good idea.

“You can go around Springfield using James River Freeway, Interstate 44 and Highway 65, and if you’d never been here before, you really don’t know that there’s a metropolitan population of almost 400,000 right next to you,” said Tracy Kimberlin, executive director of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, in an October interview. “We’ve got some pretty major attractions in this area, great shopping and great restaurants, and we just need to inform people of that.”

Click here for the full story from Nov. 28.