Whisky Way sign goes wandering
People stumbling along Moonshine Valley Rd or Whisky Way in Palmerston North may have trouble recognising where they are – the street signs often disappear.
The Whisky Way sign in Aokautere has gone missing six times since 2011, and one resident said it sometimes lasted only a week before getting stolen.
Prasika Reddy said people often had difficulty finding her house as they had no street signs to follow.
And Whisky Way runs off Moonshine Valley Rd.
‘‘It’s gotten to the point where we just say ‘oh well, there goes the sign again’,’’ Reddy said.
Reddy hoped the council would come up with a long-term solution but nothing had been done about it yet.
"It's gotten to the point where we just say 'oh well, there goes the sign again'." Prasika Reddy, Whisky Way resident
‘‘I even asked the neighbours whether we should get the road names changed.’’
Reddy’s neighbour Peter Butler said the council took ‘‘longer and longer’’ to replace the Whisky Way sign.
‘‘Three months it’s been missing, I’ve given up,’’ Butler said.
‘‘It’s a bit of a joke. I’m sure there’s a lot of man-caves and teenage boys’ rooms with that sign.’’
Butler offered to build a rock wall with the sign embedded into it but the council did not take up his offer.
‘‘What frustrates me is the council’s not thinking outside the box,’’ he said.
The Palmerston North City Council replaced 560 stolen, vandalised or damaged signs in the past six years, including 17 from College St and 12 from Park Rd.
But the most replaced sign was Ferguson St at 35 times, costing $3222.
City council acting roading manager Rob Green said large heavy objects, such as a rock wall, would be hazardous, particularly if a vehicle left the road and hit the wall.
‘‘Signs can sometimes be made less accessible by mounting them high on utility poles, but this can put them out of view, which defeats the purpose.’’
There were only a few sign manufacturers in New Zealand, which led to a time lag in getting stolen signs replaced, Green said.
Other stolen signs included Holly Ct and Nicolas Lane, which residents assumed were popular first names.
Holly Ct resident Cameron Lau said the street sign had gone missing at least three times since he moved there four years ago.
Lau tells visitors his street is ‘‘by that tree’’, or suggests they Google-map it.
Lau said the sign’s absence threw off taxi drivers and even threw him off at times. ‘‘Sometimes I just drive past it.’’ Holly Ct is one of many cul-desacs off Ferguson St and without the sign it just looked like another driveway, Lau said.
The average sign cost $76.64 to replace, with the most expensive replacement in 2016 costing $440 for a roundabout street sign.