Well, in many cases yes. Sedona (an entity that seems to actually care about its trail system) has wonderful navigational signs. With some thought, we could hav

Well, in many cases yes. Sedona (an entity that seems to actually care about its trail system) has wonderful navigational signs. With some thought, we could have signs like these and be significantly better off. They blend in until you reach them, and are useful but unobtrusive. Sedona, for what it's worth, also uses navigational cairns in several cases— often gabion cairns that cannot simply be knocked over. The City of Phoenix, however, has shown over and over again to have no idea of the value of their trail system. They have repeatedly treated it like a burden to endure instead of the asset that it is. Their navigational signage is uninspired, lazy, ugly, incomplete, and in many cases factually incorrect. Their penchant seems to be for blocking off areas to access using poorly constructed steel signs in concrete. These signs tend to rust and tip over, contributing repeatedly to the wasteland aesthetic they ostensibly seek to avoid. I could go on about how impressively poorly the City of Phoenix handles its trail system, but I'll leave it at this: for some areas the signs you get will be significantly worse than the possibility some rocks might get knocked over by some naive do-gooder. End rant :)