This sign will disappear by sundown. (Andrew Wiseman - New Columbia Heights) Fabulous news: Those messy-looking street signs I highlighted Thursday will soon be fixed. Soon, as in today, Friday.

The estimable John Lisle, ace spokesman for the D.C. Department of Transportation, relays word from a DDOT official that those particular signs, at Georgia and New Hampshire avenues NW, “should not have been installed.”

“It was one of the first prototype signs that we were testing with the new font, but somehow made it out into the field,” he writes.

So what was the problem? Extrusion, says Lisle:

The issue that we were having at first when we started changing the sign over to the new font was that the District uses extruded street name sign blanks. Most jurisdictions throughout the United States apparently use regular flat plate street name signs blanks. They have no extruded edges and they are cheaper in cost.

The MUTCD and the Federal Highway Sign Standards and Specifications did not take into consideration street name blanks with extruded edges. So we had to work with the font size to fit on sign blanks with extruded edges.

We have worked through this problem and all the signs we are now installing meets the required standards and specifications as set forth.

For more on those standards and specification and why they have recently changed, read up here.

If you notice another ugly sign, give me a shout and, even better, check out The Daily Gripe.