2009 Edition of the MUTCD

[mgk920]

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin state MUTCD supplement contains this interesting statement within:

"The M1-6 County Route Sign illustrated in the MUTCD is intended to identify a special system of important County Highways, and shall not be used unless the Wisconsin Counties Association has established a state-wide system as prescribed by the National Association of Counties.  The standard County Route Sign (M1-5A) shall be a white square with black border and legend."

Apparently, what sets Wisconsin's county highways apart from those of other states is that they aren't important.  

Anyways, I really *LIKE* Wisconsin's standard county signs.



Mike

[froggie]

Resurrecting this thread, I thought some of you (Mr. Winkler in particular) would find this presentation of interest.  It was given by Richard Moeur of Arizona DOT (some of you may remember him from MTR many years ago) at one of the TRB annual meeting workshops yesterday.

Of particular note is page 25.  ADOT estimates the price of full compliance with the 2009 MUTCD at $400 million.

[agentsteel53]

Of particular note is page 25.  ADOT estimates the price of full compliance with the 2009 MUTCD at $400 million.

$400 million better spent elsewhere.  those few remaining button copy signs all seem perfectly serviceable to me. 

[froggie]

There's FAR MORE involved with that figure than just repalcing a few button copy signs.

[agentsteel53]

is there anything that is wildly, dangerously out of compliance?  like Templin Highway Stop Sign level of terrifying?

[J N Winkler]

Froggie--many thanks for sharing the link.

The $400 million figure for one-time compliance costs in Arizona sounds a tad high to me, but then the detailed basis for that calculation is not given and I have never had to price traffic control device installation for local agencies.  Sign rehabilitations are broken out separately:  $3 million funding annually to maintain a 30-year replacement cycle, which will have to triple to go to a 10-year replacement cycle.  That is about $120 million extra over 20 years.

BTW, Arizona DOT seems to have stopped letting signing replacement jobs as construction contracts.  Instead, they are being done as procurement contracts.  Last September ADOT awarded a sign replacement contract (spanning seven TRACS numbers and covering long lengths of I-40, I-17, I-10, I-8, and Loop 202) to two vendors.  The total award amount was about $6 million.

[myosh_tino]

If Arizona is saying that it will cost them $400 million to be fully compliant with the 2009 MUTCD, then I would dare say that California's estimate of $500 million to $1 billion for full compliance is a low-ball number when considering the highway networks of each state.  Assuming Arizona's estimate is accurate, then a more realistic estimate for California would be in the $2-4 billion range.

[mightyace]

^^^

Unless there's a lot of pork or graft in Arizona's figure.

[myosh_tino]

I don't mean to resurrect a thread that's not seen any activity in the past 5 months but California *finally* released drafts of Parts 2D and 2E of it's 2011 California MUTCD.  These sections pertain to guide signs and covers the somewhat controversial arrow-per-lane diagrammatic introduced in the 2009 MUTCD.

Link: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/mutcdsupp/ca_mutcd2011_draftrevisions.htm

I've had a chance to skim through it and found that California did not modify it as much as I thought they would.  In fact, the sections covering street sign (no more all caps), arrow-per-lane diagrammatics and one-down-arrow-per-lane sections were pretty much left intact.  Whether that means California will follow these new standards is another story... remember, this is only a draft.  If Caltrans does use the arrow-per-lane diagrammatic, it will be interesting to see how this type of sign will be implemented given the current 120" maximum height of BGS in California. It's worth noting that in previous versions, California did leave the diagrammatic signs in the MUTCD but rarely used these signs.  The same might be said for the arrow-per-lane signs.

Caltrans is accepting public comment on these sections until June 30th, 2011.

Mods: If you feel the need to split this post off into it's own thread either on this board or the Southwest board, feel free to do so.

[jwolfer]

CT has exits that are really close together...how are the going to implement mile based exits....they can't!

The same way Illinois does on the Dan Ryan and Kennedy Expressways, as Roadfro said, with letter suffixes.  The ones on the Kennedy go all the way (consecutively) up to H.

Wouldn't just be easier to keep sequential numbering?  It seems they are making it more complicated then it has to be. I usually expect Exit 4 to be after Exit 5 if numbers are going down or Exit 6 to be after Exit 5 if numbers are going up. 

Could you imagine non-road people giving directions with mile based exits?  "It's off exit 12"  "er uh H", yeah "Exit 12-H"  It seems to be more complicated than it has to be.  Not a fan of the new MUTCD. 

Florida and Georgia have switched recently with little confusion. Georgia didnt even put up OLD exit tabs

[mjb2002]

South Carolina will switch to the new MUTCD in two and a half weeks.

BTW, North Carolina has already switched over too.