By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The government will make road signs more foreigner-friendly, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Friday. The government will spend 100 billion won ($76 million) to add English abbreviations such as ``Blvd.'' (Boulevard), ``St.'' (Street) and ``Rd.'' (road) to traffic signs across the nation this year.
Under the plan, ``daero'' in Korean and referring to a road with more than eight lanes, will bear a bracketed ``Blvd.'' ``St.'' will be written beside the Korean `ro'' for roads of two to eight lanes, and ``Rd.'' will be added for smaller roads, or ``gil.''
The government believes the new signs will be helpful to foreign drivers. ``The English abbreviations will help foreign tourists find out what kinds of roads lie ahead,'' said ministry official Oh Dong-ho.
For example, new signs will read: Yeongdong-daero (Blvd.), Jung-ro (St.) and Jusigyeong-gil (Rd.), and the government will adopt the new format as an official address system.
However, foreign residents were not particularly impressed with the plan ― they said they want more practical measures for foreigner-friendly traffic signs. ``We easily know `ro' and `gil' translate into street and road. This is not what we want,'' said an American professor in Seoul. ``The sign above the road often indicates you can turn left or right, but when you get to the corner, the sign says no left, I am very puzzled whenever I face this kind of situation. For instance, we need a red ``X'' that informs you that you cannot turn left or right.''
A Canadian woman living in Seoul complained Korean Romanization was not always consistent and sometimes Korean addresses don't correspond to English. ``Euljiro yipgu in Korea becomes Euljiro 1 (il)-ga in English. It is really confusing,'' she said.