The AARoads Blog

at long last, I am back, with some photos for everyone … highway signs which showed up at Roy Reed’s gas and oil collectible swap meet, and then some scenery from the subsequent days, when I found I had some time on my hands and did a quick trip up to the Bay Area and Sacramento. enjoy!

This poor guide sign has been cut into three pieces – and one is missing. But still, this is the only ACSC diamond I have ever seen which mentions “Arizona State Highway” and, even more spectacularly, the Grand Canyon! Certainly unique.

After Roy’s, we explore many roads – not all of which go to any particular place.

Well, what do we have here? Oh, just the only known surviving cateyed sign in California! This stop sign dates to between 1934 and 1942, and is the first cateyed sign anyone’s seen since the mid-1990s. A miracle that it would survive… and it does!

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Photos from Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma (and the single point in which they intersect) from September, 2009 – and some New Mexico, and a really, really small quantity of Texas.

This is the New Mexico/Colorado/Oklahoma triple point. Dale takes this opportunity to breathe some refreshing Oklahoma air, and drink some water he has brought with him from New Mexico – and park in two states at the same time.

Dale parks the car squarely in a single state, and looks up at the Kansas/Colorado/Oklahoma marker that is visible from miles away – a good thing, because the dirt roads that one takes to get to it are somewhat labyrinthine.

The Oklahoma panhandle is known for the occasional thunderstorm.

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Hooray, new route markers.

DFW’s tolling authority, the NTTA, is replacing all of their signs – which are now unique to each route – with a standardized version. The Dallas North Tollway’s familiar round green shields are about 30% gone; the George Bush Turnpike’s old signs are over 60% replaced, and the newly christened Sam Rayburn Tollway (SH 121) has about 25% of its signs in the new style.

One state north, Oklahoma, is updating their new state highway shields with alternatively colored signs for scenic routes. Oklahoma can be surprisingly scenic. I only wish the directional banner would match.

Jeff Royston passed along a photo from Oklahoma City showing that Oklahoma now is using Clearview font on its signs. The state joins a growing number of jurisdictions that are implementing the new font throughout their highway signs.

This led me again to ponder the question of which states are using it and which are not. To address the issue, we have created a guide to catalog each state and whether it uses Clearview of not. Included are examples either photographed by ourselves or by contributors showing examples of the font in each state.

Feel free to write with additional sightings, omissions, or corrections.

Oklahoma is getting new state road signs, in anticipation of the state’s centennial in 2007. (more…)