By Kathy Rowe
Back in October 2019, the CCRA executive was looking for ways to give the Centennial community a visual boost and a marked identity. Ideas ranged from “Welcome to Centennial” signposts at our borders to branded community benches at our bus stops. Further discussions gave way to the idea of replacing the old and somewhat inconsistent street signs to a whole new design that would carry throughout the community.
Councillor Jennifer McKelvie supported the idea of new street signs and made us aware of the neighbourhood project unit of transportation services. This unit looks after streetscape improvements and the CCRA was fortunate to benefit from these city-allocated funds.
A CCRA subcommittee was struck and after consultation with the city and our board a design for our street signs was chosen. The design was submitted just ahead of the city deadline so that the funds could be made available. By this time, however, the pandemic was in full swing and we were told to expect delays in putting them up.
There are approximately 290 road signs in Centennial so we knew this would take time. So I’m happy to report that right now the old Centennial Road signs are starting to be replaced with the new ones and they look wonderful.
As you can see in the photo, the letter “t” in the word Centennial has a wave-like line through it. This symbolizes Lake Ontario, an important feature in our waterfront community. On the left side of the lower portion of the sign, the city decided to place the City of Scarborough flag. Nice touch!
I want to give many thanks to past CCRA board member Kelsey Dorval and current CCRA board members Heather Lemieux and Jeff Forsyth for seeing this project through. I also want to thank Councillor Jennifer McKelvie for her guidance on this initiative.