For more than a year, the street signs overlooking High Street in the West University Neighborhood have been notoriously absent.
But two months ago, the city replaced nine of the missing signs on the corridor between 10th and 18th Streets, and so far there have been no reports of stolen signs in that location. Steve Gallup, traffic technical supervisor for the City of Eugene, said hundreds of street signs went missing each year, but that maintaining the signs on High Street was particularly challenging.
“It’s very difficult to keep those signs up,” Gallup said. “For whatever reason, they seem to be the most popular.”
Sign theft occurs most frequently on the stretch of High Street in the campus vicinity between 10th and 30th avenues. Gallup said about 35 High Street signs were reported missing before the city stopped replacing them, and those replaced were chosen because they were “the oldest of the requests on the books.” He said those signs were located at junctions with streets whose signs had also gone missing as well.
“It’s always a priority for us to go around and replace signs, but we also understand that those signs on High Street are at high risk of being stolen, and we have to consider spending our resources elsewhere,” Gallup said. “Those signs could be gone in a week, even in a weekend; I mean, that’s how fast those things go.”
Theft of a street sign is generally considered a misdemeanor, EPD Lt. Scott Fellman said, but he pointed out that it could also be a higher-level offense “if stealing the sign leads to injury or death.” 
“If you steal a street sign, and an ambulance can’t find the address of an emergency because the sign is gone and someone dies, you could be criminally liable in that death,” Fellman said. “As a side note, stealing street signs is really inconsiderate. How would you feel if you were new in town and got lost because someone stole the street sign you needed to find your destination?”
University student Audrey Merwin said she noticed the signs were missing because she would “just get lost a lot.”
The West University area is a focal point for law enforcement, Fellman said.
“We focus considerable patrol resources in that area on weekend nights due to the high level of disorder crimes that happen there, such as disorderly conduct, alcohol offenses and loud noise violations,” he said.
Many students regard the sign-less street as an iconic quirk of the West University Neighborhood.
University student Otis Laney said, “I’ve driven that street maybe 100 times, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sign.”
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