If you’ve been to Main Street-Science World since the east stationhouse upgrades were completed, you might have noticed some new signage.

There are green signs here and there throughout the station showing a person running out a doorway.

What are they?

Well, they are the new emergency exit signs!

Jeff Deby, Senior Wayfinding Specialist at TransLink, tells us these signs were adopted in the B.C. Building Code in 2012 and the National Building Code of Canada in 2010.

These will replace the text-based, red ‘EXIT’ signs as the standard emergency exit sign in all new building facilities in Canada.

“The new signs follow the ISO international standard and are commonly seen in Europe and Asia,” Jeff says. “It will be more familiar to international travellers, and the graphic method of communication is easier to understand for people who don’t read English.

It is also clearly separate from the wayfinding system (which helps people navigate the transit network) because it is so distinctive, making it clearer in cases when an exit is for emergency use.”

Since this sign is the new standard in B.C., it will start to appear in more facilities across the transit network in the coming years.

This includes all six new Evergreen stations and other SkyTrain stations that have been identified for major upgrades.

Author: Allen Tung