States with the best and worst BGS designs

[Mergingtraffic]

Which states have the best and worst BGS designs and layouts?

Sign type, font, lettering, exit tab styles etc

Best:

I'd say FL and CT.

I-4 END by mergingtraffic, on Flickr

Highway Gothic font, well laid out and the exit tabs are separate and are properly spaced. I noticed the corners of the exit tabs are proper to the size of the exit tab unlike PA where the corners of the tabs are the same size as the BGS. Here's an example of PA:



CT is the same as FL for the most part.  I do miss the borderless exit tabs.  For a year or two CT was doing right/left aligned borderless exit tabs and it looked really slick.
Walking the new, unopened to traffic, SB lanes of the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge.  I-95 New Haven, CT.  Note: the lines have not been painted yet but the new signs are up. by mergingtraffic, on Flickr



WORST:
Although I don't have any pics, but states with Clearview and squeezed fonts.  Exits tabs that are inside the sign or part of it.  GA comes to mind.

[vdeane]

Worst I would guess would be the Clearview signs the Thruway erected.

[Scott5114]

Best is easy.

The problem with the worst states is that they're often "worst" because they're incredibly inconsistent from panel to panel. You might get a run of gorgeous, well-thought-out signs and then have a barftastic panel thrown into the mix. Such things aren't designed so much as they happen by accident due to lax controls.

Very rarely can you point to a state that's consistently bad in some systemic way, because that would mean someone created a rule forcing it to be so. (I suppose you could argue that something like Caltrans' "all panels must be the same size" edict could be an example of this, but not everyone seems to feel that way about it.)

[jakeroot]

Best: British Columbia because I love Clearview and up arrows, and I'm PROUD









Worst: (I joke but) British Columbia because they have no quality control...

[jbnv]

WORST:
Although I don't have any pics, but states with Clearview and squeezed fonts.

Haters gonna hate.

The problem with the worst states is that they're often "worst" because they're incredibly inconsistent from panel to panel. You might get a run of gorgeous, well-thought-out signs and then have a barftastic panel thrown into the mix. Such things aren't designed so much as they happen by accident due to lax controls.

+100. See Louisiana for example. Our BGSs generally aren't bad (even the all-Clearview ones that the haters love to hate on) but they suffer from a host of maladies, especially poor vertical spacing and kerning.

[jbnv]

By the way, I'll give my best-of votes to Texas and Florida.

[OracleUsr]

Which states have the best and worst BGS designs and layouts?

Sign type, font, lettering, exit tab styles etc

Best:

I'd say FL and CT.

I-4 END by mergingtraffic, on Flickr

Highway Gothic font, well laid out and the exit tabs are separate and are properly spaced. I noticed the corners of the exit tabs are proper to the size of the exit tab unlike PA where the corners of the tabs are the same size as the BGS. Here's an example of PA:



CT is the same as FL for the most part.  I do miss the borderless exit tabs.  For a year or two CT was doing right/left aligned borderless exit tabs and it looked really slick.
Walking the new, unopened to traffic, SB lanes of the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge.  I-95 New Haven, CT.  Note: the lines have not been painted yet but the new signs are up. by mergingtraffic, on Flickr



WORST:
Although I don't have any pics, but states with Clearview and squeezed fonts.  Exits tabs that are inside the sign or part of it.  GA comes to mind.

GA is moving away from the Unisign

Virginia, before they moved away from full Clearview, was one of the worst.  Their thin-tab Clearview style stunk.

Best:  New NC style, new VA style (even with Clearview), new GA style.

[kurumi]

CT is greatly improved from 25-30 years ago. You rarely saw problems with text alignment and typos; sometimes US/state shields were flipped, and the whole button copy motif of 1980s and 1990s really aged poorly in terms of visibility. Glad to see it go. The newest signs, if not the nation's best, are certainly close enough. I've seen no Clearview and very little APL.

CA is not going to change. I like the historical stuff, but general modern layout... I'm done arguing about it

As to where I've been recently, I really like AZ and TN; close second are MN, HI. Don't care as much for NV (some tiny route markers). "Good enough" but not really memorable are KY, IA, NH, MA. Finally, ME gets a nod for frequent sine salads on I-95; every exit's a party.

[lordsutch]

GA is moving away from the Unisign

Yep, and they're going to disappear fast because virtually all of them date from the conversion to mileage-based exit numbering and are at their end of life. The ones on GA 400 and Loop 10 might stick around longer, though.

Mississippi generally does a good job with new signs, but there are some leftover all-caps BGSes around the state that still need to be replaced - I think all the ones on interstates are gone, but plenty remain on US and state routes.

[Pink Jazz]

Not sure if I would call it the best, however, I kind of like Arizona's larger than standard exit tabs that have been in use since about 2003-2004.  This is about the same time that I think they have stopped requiring sign lighting except near freeway to freeway interchanges since I think ADOT started to use Type IX sheeting around that time.  Midway through the Clearview era ADOT started to use Type XI sheeting, which doesn't use lighting period.

[TXtoNJ]

TX really depends on local TxDOT office. Some, like Central Texas, are excellent. Others, like Houston, are infuriating. Both NTTA and HCTRA have great signage, too.

[roadman65]

I have to say the Palisades Parkway in NJ is worse with the way US 9W is signed.  Plus the whole organization of things could be desired more overall.  Even NYS has better signs and its all the same bureau that maintains the freeway in both states.

NJ Turnpike used to be the best before the MUTCD stepped in, and even so some of the newer signs I have seen on GSV are really excellent.  However, the former SB Eastern Spur signs for Exit 15E without motorists information was the drawback for them having great signs  all the way which now has full info including the erroneous US 1 & 9 shields on them as its really US 1 & 9 Truck or US 1 & 9 T as NJDOT calls it.

[briantroutman]

I noticed the corners of the exit tabs are proper to the size of the exit tab unlike PA where the corners of the tabs are the same size as the BGS. Here's an example of PA:

I know it's not how the MUTCD depicts exit panels in their illustrations, but personally, I prefer the consistent corner radius used on many Pennsylvania guide signs' exit tabs.

I understand the inclination to "scale down"  the corner radius to the exit tab, since it's much smaller than the guide sign, but I find the juxtaposition of two different corner radii in the upper right corner of the assembly to look awkward.

[mwb1848]

Worst is New Mexico.

It's all an inconsistent mess. Even their own state highway shields vary dramatically between installations.

They also get points deducted for using a ton of non-BGS's as supplemental signs on freeways.

[OracleUsr]

Wisconsin, thumbs down.

"Hey, that yellow LEFT banner is cool.  Let's shove it into existing tabs for fun, to heck with scale"

[Pink Jazz]

Worst is New Mexico.

It's all an inconsistent mess. Even their own state highway shields vary dramatically between installations.

They also get points deducted for using a ton of non-BGS's as supplemental signs on freeways.

I know that usually on BGS NMDOT usually does not include the red Zia symbol on the shields (with 3di BGS shields usually being elliptical), although I have seen a few exceptions.

Also, NMDOT District 5 (Santa Fe) has used Clearview for some BGS; they are the only NMDOT district that has used Clearview (although the cities of Rio Rancho and Los Alamos have experimented with Clearview on a few street blades).

[DaBigE]

Wisconsin, thumbs down.

"Hey, that yellow LEFT banner is cool.  Let's shove it into existing tabs for fun, to heck with scale"

Huh? Could you provide an example?
The ones around the Madison-area seem to be to-scale. If you switch to the right lane image, you can see it's definitely not the original tab.

[PHLBOS]

I noticed the corners of the exit tabs are proper to the size of the exit tab unlike PA where the corners of the tabs are the same size as the BGS. Here's an example of PA:

I know it's not how the MUTCD depicts exit panels in their illustrations, but personally, I prefer the consistent corner radius used on many Pennsylvania guide signs' exit tabs.

I understand the inclination to "scale down"  the corner radius to the exit tab, since it's much smaller than the guide sign, but I find the juxtaposition of two different corner radii in the upper right corner of the assembly to look awkward.

One thing to keep in mind that the above-example has a much newer (by at least 25-30 years), retrofitted exit tab.  The original tab (that read EXIT 33) featured only rounded borders on the top of the tab and no divider line underneath; depicted by the break in the top border of the main panel.

[Mergingtraffic]

How was GA allowed to get away with posting the squeezed fonted BGS signs in the first place?

[jbnv]

How was GA allowed to get away with posting the squeezed fonted BGS signs in the first place?

They must have gotten the same penalty Louisiana got for putting Clearview numerals in shields. 

[plain]

I always liked Maryland's because they're usually large and very readable. As far as the worst, I've seen some poor BGS's in many states myself but I'm just gonna go by the examples I've seen on AARoads and say Oklahoma.

[OracleUsr]

Wisconsin, thumbs down.

"Hey, that yellow LEFT banner is cool.  Let's shove it into existing tabs for fun, to heck with scale"

Huh? Could you provide an example?
The ones around the Madison-area seem to be to-scale. If you switch to the right lane image, you can see it's definitely not the original tab.

http://www.crosscountryroads.com/images/wisconsin/i894eb/DSC04715.JPG

This is one...okay, it just LOOKS like that's what they did.

[plain]

Wisconsin, thumbs down.

"Hey, that yellow LEFT banner is cool.  Let's shove it into existing tabs for fun, to heck with scale"

Huh? Could you provide an example?
The ones around the Madison-area seem to be to-scale. If you switch to the right lane image, you can see it's definitely not the original tab.

http://www.crosscountryroads.com/images/wisconsin/i894eb/DSC04715.JPG

This is one...okay, it just LOOKS like that's what they did.

That airport symbol on the BGS looks hideous. They could've done much better than that

[machias]

How was GA allowed to get away with posting the squeezed fonted BGS signs in the first place?

They weren't "squeezed fonts", it was Series D modified with a few extra enhancements, a squared off "D", and lowercase i and j without the dots (some of the time). Personally, I *loved* Georgia's BGS design during this era - very easy to read, the larger letters lent to improved visibility and the signs were laid out well for the most part. I'm sad to see them go.

[Scott5114]

Best is easy for me. It's Kansas DOT. They may not have flashy or particularly cool signage, but it is clear, well-formatted, and easy to read, each panel following the same design cues to make a remarkably consistent experience, mile after mile.