Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Bad road sign will stay there for a spell
B. POOLE
Tucson Citizen
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Maybe we could forgive them if it were a sign pointing the way to Sikul Himatite or Haivana Nakya or Kaihon Kug, all small towns on the Tohono O'odham Nation.
But Arizona Department of Transportation workers recently erected a sign along Cortaro Farms Road near Interstate 10 directing motorists to "Phoeinx."
Officials in Tucson who could explain the flub were unavailable yesterday, but ADOT spokesman Bill Peterson said the sign will probably be there a while.
"Obviously we're going to replace it, but it won't happen overnight. We have quite a backlog," said Peterson, who was unaware of the flub until yesterday.
The replacement would be done immediately if it were dangerous, but this one ranks as a mere "embarrassment," he said.
This is not the first time someone has misspelled Phoenix.
In 2001, our northern neighbor ranked ninth among America's most-misspelled cities in an analysis by ePodunk, a Web-based geographic information clearinghouse.
Tucson ranked second in the study behind Pittsburgh.
In 1994, sign makers misspelled Tucson - spelling it "Tuscon," the most common misspelling in the ePodunk study - on signs along an Aviation Parkway bike path. Those signs were replaced.
