Designing Hydrants

Look out "Trading Spaces", The City of Springfield has come up with a totally fabulous design show idea. And the State Journal-Register is on top of it:

City workers played Picasso Wednesday, repainting fire hydrants in the area of
Ninth Street between Capitol Avenue and Monroe Street to allow city officials
and the public to preview five new possible color schemes.

Once the city picks one of the designs, every hydrant downtown will be repainted with the same color scheme, except for the top bolt. The top bolts will have different colors to reflect the water-pressure level for each hydrant.

Wow, how groovy! I can't wait for the reveal which is set to occurred in conjunction with another big event in the city - next month's opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. Abe was a hydrant man of great repute. It's a little known fact that the Civil War started over Lincoln's pledge in the 1860 presidential campaign to paint Washington DC's gray hydrants blue.
Anyway, back to our story:

A City Water, Light and Power graphic artist designed the hydrants, and
five were chosen to test paint, said Thomas Skelly, CWLP's water division
manager.

Mayor Tim Davlin and CWLP general manager Todd Renfrow will make the
final call on which design is chosen, Skelly said.

Renfrow got the idea from traveling to other cities and seeing what
they have done to spruce things up downtown.

Really? The thing he noticed about other cities was the hydrants? Who says our city leaders lack vision. I bet no one else has ever come away from a fact-finding trip so focused on hydrants. We do think big here.

The new hydrant colors tie into new teardrop-shaped streetlights and stoplights
installed by the city.

Well, the old designs did clash. I know of several firefights who simply walked away from fires after having their fashion senses assaulted by this frightful color scheme.

Three cheers for Springfield, soon to be a truly fabulous city.