Photo courtesy New Columbia Heights.

Local blog New Columbia Heights has a reader who noticed something new in the Columbia Heights Metrorail station: a sign which informs people which side of the station to exit on to get to different neighborhoods. The signs, which used to say 14th Street Southbound and Northbound, are an interesting hyper-local touch for Metro.

The signs bring up a lot of questions. Why the switch? How did Metro decide to highlight only Mount Pleasant and Pleasant Plains — the latter of which is hardly right next to the Metro station? Will WMATA be installing signs in other stations like this? We’ve contacted WMATA about these questions, but have yet to receive an official response.

UPDATE: According to Metro spokesperson Ron Holzer, the sign was installed at the request of Councilmember Jim Graham. “He said customers were confused about which exit to use for these two neighborhoods,” said Holzer. He was also not aware of any other plans to install similar signs in any other Metro station.

On the one hand, it’s a nice local touch; but on the other, someone visiting town could be confused about whether they’ve actually arrived in Columbia Heights or not on their way out. It seems like a fair compromise would be to add neighborhood information to the signs underneath street information, but then again, that might make the signs too cluttered to be effective.

Do you like the new signage? Or do you find it distracting compared to the simple street-based signage that was previously installed? Let us know in the comments.