It’s not a bad idea, of course, to air on the side of caution when it comes to street lighting systems such as commercial luminaires and decorative lamp posts and signage systems such as traffic signs and custom aluminum street signs. And here at Brandon Industries, we take pride in providing communities with reliable, top-quality streetscape products at affordable prices.

But careful, accurate streetscape installations can save your community a bit of money that can be used elsewhere (say, on attractive courtyard lighting for a park or community space) — without sacrificing safety.

Our streetscape experts can help.

For example, how can your community decide exactly how many street lights (and what type of street lamps) are needed to keep your streets safe for pedestrians and drivers alike — without going overboard and ordering and installing extra lights that don’t actually enhance lighting coverage or aesthetic appeal. Each community has unique needs concerning streetlights, depending upon the landscape of the neighborhood and specific traffic patterns. So each community will require a unique streetscape solution.

Or, for another example, your community’s wayfinding sign needs and traffic sign needs will depend specifically on both local and state laws and regulations.

Here at Brandon Industries, we’ve been serving the streetscape needs of neighborhoods nationwide for nearly 25 years. So we have a highly refined, unmatched understanding of what is needed in most streetscape installations. But beyond our own experience and expertise, we also know when to ask for help — and when outside experts are needed (such as a local lighting engineer, city government officials or neighborhood association representatives). We can tell you who you need to check with concerning different installations, as well as how to find them.

But the first step is simply to contact us with any questions about what’s right for your neighborhood, business center, retail center, school, park or entertainment complex.

Christmas is over. New Year’s came and went with a last triumphant blow of the party horn. The peak of winter is likely just a few weeks away, which can only mean that… it’s time to start planning for summer now.

Okay — there’s no real hurry. But summer comes quickly, and you’ll want to be ready with streetscape projects completed when it does. Here are two reasons to start planning for summer early:

residential streetscape

Summer Home Shopping

Spring is home-shopping season and summer is home-buying season. The housing market is historically buyer-friendly, which means that communities are still likely in competition mode when it comes to attracting new families to their neighborhoods. When home-buyers make a decision, they don’t just purchase a house — they “purchase” the neighborhood. Finding a safe, walkable, attractive neighborhood that fosters a robust sense of community spirit can be just as important as square footage and a desirable floorplan in the home-buying decision.

Our streetscape solutions are excellent for making a striking first impression with potential home-buyers. For example, our custom wayfinding signs “welcome” shoppers and demonstrate a commitment to excellence and class. Our street lighting systems and street signs demonstrate a determined devotion to safety that shoppers crave for their children. Our custom logo signs add a sense of distinct community identity. And our decorative mailboxes can add a bit of nostalgic, old-world charm that can leave a lasting impression.

Outdoors

Longer days mean more time spent outdoors, and summer school vacations mean outdoor playtime often extends past twilight. We all want our kids to be able to play in the streets, explore neighborhood parks, and walk to school safely. That’s why most families move to neighborhoods like the ones we serve. Our streetscape solutions such as outdoor lighting systems and traffic signs can help maintain a safe, care-free environment for your community’s kids.

It’s simply a wonderful time of year here in Dallas-Ft. Worth. Here’s how just a few of our streetscape solutions can keep your neighborhood safe and celebrating:

1. Wayfinding signs — To help folks navigate shopping and entertainment centers and make the Christmas shopping rush that much less stressful. The last thing you’ll want to do is be lost and looking for a parking spot in front of the wrong store.
2. Decorative Streetlights and Lamp Posts — To keep streets illuminated, friendly, and safe for both residents and visitors, without resorting to a prison-like ultra-industrial look.
3. Traffic signs — To make sure drivers stop where they need to stop, allowing families of carolers to walk where they need to walk.
4. Decorative mailboxes — To receive Christmas cards with style and grace.
5. Locking mailboxes — To prevent Christmas gift theft (the most heinous of all crimes).
6. Custom shape aluminum street signs — To make sure that when you invite friends and family over for Christmas dinner parties, they’ll actually arrive before the eggnog is gone.
7. Custom logo signs — To help lost friends at least figure out what neighborhood they’re in.
8. Sidewalk lights — To keep the streets inviting and encourage families to come outside, stroll the neighborhood, look at Christmas lights, and sing through that caroling songbook.
9. HDPE and ACE signs – To make sure visitors feel welcome in your neighborhood (and understand your community’s rules).
10. Radar feedback signs — To remind drivers that the holiday season is a great time to slooooow down and relax a bit.
11. Courtyard lights — To make public spaces like parks accessible after dark, and to keep outdoor shopping centers open for last-minute gift scrambles.
12. Tough aluminum construction — To maintain reliability during an unexpected white Christmas.

Last time here on the Brandon Industries blog, we talked a bit about how our line of tough, reliable locking mailboxes do more than just prevent mail theft (which is far more common than most homeowners think). Locking mailboxes prevent identity theft, loss of income, missed payments on bills, and loss of irreplaceable items like letters and gifts from friends and family.

Don’t believe that it could happen to you? Let’s take a look at some stats:

• In 2006, police across America made 5,060 arrests for mail theft.
• 4,625 of the thieves were convicted.
• A typical thief can usually get around $1,000 from a mailbox from new or reissued checks.
• Mail theft is a federal offense punishable by $250,000 fines… yet it still happens all the time.

Beyond just the money, one of the scariest things mail theft can lead to is identity theft:

• According to a leading blog about identity theft, more than 15 million people each year in America experience identity theft of some form.
• Identity theft causes, on average, $50 million in losses for families across America.
• This means that nearly 7 percent of all Americans will be victims of identity theft.
• Per case, identity theft results in an average of $3,500 in losses each.
• Close to 100 million Americans are at risk of at mail theft-caused identity theft.

If identity theft isn’t bad enough, check out what types of trouble mail theft attracts: In Arizona, from 90 to 95 percent of mail theft in the Tuscon area comes from meth users.

You get the point. It’s just not worth it.

According to police and the US Postal Service, “deterring mail thieves is as easy as locking outside mailboxes.” So our line of decorative locking mailboxes can make a big, big difference.

We’ve got two models, The Defender and The Reliant — both can secure your mail without sacrificing style and aesthetic purity.

Here at Brandon Industries, we’re proud to provide a full line of tough, attractive custom mailboxes and decorative mailboxes. But now you can add a layer of security to your mailbox with our two new locking mailboxes.

1. The Defender Locking Mailbox – the name speaks for itself. The massive size of this mailbox is perfect for any business wanting to protect large amounts of mail and packages.
2. The Reliant Locking Mailbox – sleek design blends beautifully in any neighborhood. No one will notice the locking mechanism hidden behind the mailbox door except you, your postmaster, and anyone trying to swipe mail out of your mailbox.

Because here’s the thing — it’s virtually impossible to know whether or not mail is getting taken out of your mailbox. Most households get bundles of mail each day. Some of it is junk, but you could probably make a pretty big pile out of all the bills, checks, letters, notices, postcards, small packages, and other important pieces of mail you get each month as well.

Sure, if you’re expecting something like a paycheck or package you’ll eventually notice if it does not arrive — but at what cost? And how likely are you to really notice if something equally private or sensitive that you weren’t expecting gets swiped?

Consider what could be lost without a locking mailbox:

• If your paycheck or another source of income normally arrives by mail, can you afford to wait the extra month or two it might take to get a replacement for the one that was stolen?
• What kind of headache are you willing to put up with while your gas gets cut-off due to non-payment on a monthly utilities bill you never received?
• How willing are you to risk a serious dent in your credit score for non-payment on another bill you never received?
• How many documents arrive in your mailbox each month containing sensitive, personal information that could be used in an identity theft?
• How many irreplaceable items like personal letters or post cards from friends and loved ones do you receive? You can’t put a price on that sort of thing.

If you’re interested in adding the extra security to your mail arriving at your home or business take a look at the multiple models of locking mailboxes we provide.

Buying bulk unpainted streetscape products from us makes for a simplified and fast way to easily get the quality products you need at a great price before customizing them as you see fit for your branding needs and specific local regulations.

Here are three of the many advantages of purchasing unpainted products in bulk:

1. One phone call. Ready to ship.

Here at Brandon Industries, we’ve got more than 30,000 square feet of unpainted inventory that is in stock and ready to ship, providing you with the fastest lead time in the industry. With one simple phone call, a direct sale can be made with a living, breathing streetscape expert who can answer any of your questions and get you the exact bulk order you need. The simplicity and ease of the order and shipping process is unparallelled. Orders will ship to your site or a powder coater of your choosing.

2. Maximum Savings

Per-skid pricing of unpainted streetscape products will maximize your savings. Get exactly what you need for a specific project or to enhance your inventory.

3. Unpainted Streetscape Products = Flexible Customization

In addition to the cost advantage of purchasing quality unpainted streetscape products in bulk, the lack of paint provides the full freedom you need to customize the products however you see fit, according to your branding goals and local codes and regulations. You’ll have unlimited options for the powder coater of your choosing, or for your own paint finish.

All of Brandon Industries’ quality bulk unpainted streetscape products, such as sign pole bases, street sign finials, street sign poles and street sign trims, offer the advantages of simple order and shipping, maximum savings, and flexible customization, among their other advantages.

From our headquarters in McKinney, Texas, just 30 miles north of Downtown Dallas, we’re proud to provide a comprehensive catalog of top-quality street signs, including:

• Custom Logo Signs
• Custom-Shape Aluminum Signs
• Wayfinding Signs
• HDPE & ACP Signs
• Street Signs
• Radar Signs

A few weeks ago, we provided some basic instructions for how to install a sign post. Today, let’s finish the job and go step by step through how to attach signs, trims and brackets to posts. Let’s take a look:

How you attach sign to the pole depends, of course, on the pole you’ve installed:

Fluted Pole Installations and Smooth Pole Installations

Both smooth poles (like our smooth round poles and our smooth square poles) and our fluted poles come without pre-drilled holes, so you’ll need to drill holes yourself in order to mount trims, brackets and the actual signs. Measure carefully before drilling to determine the clearance height of the lowest sign. Make sure that the sign height you measure will conform to city and neighborhood restrictions. Use a level to verify that the drilled hole will be perpendicular to the post, or measure carefully and drill from opposite sides to ensure proper alignment. Then it’s a simple matter of using the screws to fasten the sign to the post.

Channel Pole Installations

Our proprietary channel poles, on the other hand, do not require drilling in order to attach signs. Instead, the signs are attached to the channel. You simply slide the nut or bolt into the channel, tighten, and call it a day. It’s that simple.

Note: Sign blades and sign trims also need to be assembled, but here too installation is incredibly easy. You simply slide the double-sided street sign into the trim, and use a set screw to hold it in place.

Our sign posts are tough, reliable, and durable — but only, of course, if they’re installed correctly. Thankfully, with a little bit of know-how, erecting one of our street sign poles is pretty simple.

Two important notes to remember before you start:

1. Contact Local Authorities!

Before you even place your order, go ahead and contact your local authorities first to make sure the post will comply with all local ordinances, codes, and regulations. Codes change from community to community, and factors you might not have thought about could be a problem, including requirements about clearance heights, sign dimensions, and vinyl types. Here at Brandon Industries, we have a flexible, friendly customer service policy, but it’ll save you both time and money to make sure the sign post you’re installing is legal before you start digging.

2. Don’t Get Hurt!

Buried gas lines and power lines abound along streets and sidewalks, especially in newer neighborhood developments. So before you break ground, be sure to contact the local utility companies first. They’ll tell you where to dig, and what to avoid. Dig carefully.

Now let’s begin:

1. Dig a hole. How wide and deep the hole needs to be depends local codes and soil conditions.

2. Insert the pole.  It’s important to make sure that the pole’s channels or holes are properly aligned with the street (in other words, make sure the the street sign will be facing the correct direction, perfectly perpendicular to the street).

3. Level the pole carefully, and brace it into place.

4. Create a form for the cement footing. You want to make sure the footing will be slightly above the grade of the ground, in order to protect the pole’s finish from soil and lawn equipment.

5. Carefully fill the hole with cement or concrete.

6. Recheck with a level before the cement fully dries. Adjust if needed.

7. Give the concrete some time to cure before installing signs or other components. You might need to drill some holes to install the signs, which could throw the pole out of balance again or crack the concrete.

These instructions are valid for the vast majority of the sign poles we offer, including four-inch channel poles,  four-inch fluted round poles, three-inch fluted round poles, and four-inch smooth square poles. But if you have questions, go ahead and give one of our sign pole specialists a call for more information.

Wired Magazine tells the story of a community in California that was having a difficult time getting drivers to slow down in school zones. Even increased police enforcement had only a limited effect. But after installing a series of radar feedback signs, drivers slowed down by an average of 14 percent.

According to Wired:

“The signs were curious in a few ways. For one thing, they didn’t tell drivers anything they didn’t already know—there is, after all, a speedometer in every car. If a motorist wanted to know their speed, a glance at the dashboard would do it. For another thing, the signs used radar, which decades earlier had appeared on American roads as a talisman technology, reserved for police officers only. Now Garden Grove had scattered radar sensors along the side of the road like traffic cones. And the Your Speed signs came with no punitive follow-up—no police officer standing by ready to write a ticket. This defied decades of law-enforcement dogma, which held that most people obey speed limits only if they face some clear negative consequence for exceeding them.”

The key was what scientists call a “feedback loop.”

Basically, if you equip people with information about their actions in real-time, they’ll improve their behavior. Tell drivers that they’re speeding, and they’ll usually slow down. For another example — tell drivers that they’re using too much gasoline (via, say, the consumption display in a Toyota Prius), and they’ll actively try to improve their efficiency.

And they work. Again, according to Wired:

“So feedback loops work. Why? Why does putting our own data in front of us somehow compel us to act? In part, it’s that feedback taps into something core to the human experience, even to our biological origins. Like any organism, humans are self-regulating creatures, with a multitude of systems working to achieve homeostasis. Evolution itself, after all, is a feedback loop, albeit one so elongated as to be imperceptible by an individual. Feedback loops are how we learn, whether we call it trial and error or course correction. In so many areas of life, we succeed when we have some sense of where we stand and some evaluation of our progress. Indeed, we tend to crave this sort of information; it’s something we viscerally want to know, good or bad. As Stanford’s Bandura put it, “People are proactive, aspiring organisms.” Feedback taps into those aspirations.”

Here at Brandon Industries, we offer a full line of driver feedback signs that can effectively slow down drivers and make your community’s streets a safer place for families. But the feedback loop principle applies partially to more than just radar feedback signs — even without real-time feedback, any of the street signage systems your community, school, or business park uses to transmit important information can be more effective through careful, repetitious installation.

For example, colorful custom logo signs and custom aluminum signs that display your community’s logo transmit “real-time” information about where the driver is — and remind them that these streets are where kids and families could be playing.

The feedback loop principle just proves how important strategic streetscape planning is for safety in your neighborhood. We’re eager to help neighborhoods build effective, safety-boosting streetscapes.

What are they?

Basically, breakaway poles are specifically engineered to break when struck by a vehicle. This design is helpful in high-speed environments, where an unyielding sign post could make a off-road traffic accident significantly worse. The cost of a sign, of course, will never outweigh the cost of a human life.

In fact, instead of being a potentially deadly roadside hazard, breakaway poles can actually act as a sort of crash cushion. In the event of a crash, the breakaway poles absorbing most of the impact energy (instead of returning it to the vehicle), while still slowing down the runaway vehicle. It’s an excellent way to boost safety in your city, neighborhood, or commercial development.

Where on the road can you find breakaway design?

In general, you can find breakaway technology in a diverse range of roadside devices, including traffic signs, mailboxes, traffic signals, light posts, call boxes, utility poles, and more.

Here at Brandon Industries, we offer a large inventory of Federal Highway Administration-approved breakaway engineering with our sign poles, including our 3″ OD fluted sign pole, and 4″ OD fluted sign pole. These sign poles are ideal for stop signs, speed limit signs, and other custom road signs.

Does this undermine durability and strength?

Nope. They’re strong, durable, long-lasting, and constructed from premium materials, just like all of our sign poles.

Are breakaway poles ever legally required?

Breakaway requirements vary from city to city and state to state, depending on the type of road or highway—both the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Texas Department of Transportation (TXDoT) have slightly different recommendations and requirements—so it can get to be a little bit confusing. If you have questions about where breakaway poles are required in your community, contact one of our Dallas signage professionals for help. We’ll get you what your community needs.