The Clearview Subject

[SidS1045]

I would expect that anything that doesn't presently conform - mainly Clearview negative contract signs (yes, I'm looking at you PA and TX) would have to be changed out as soon as possible.

Someone ought to point that out to the Boston Transportation Department.  Despite a pointed denial in January of 2012 from the department's spokesman, and despite being specifically prohibited in the Massachusetts supplement to the MUTCD, Boston is in the midst of replacing all its street signs with...you guessed it, new signs using Clearview.  They're all over the Brighton neighborhood where I work and they're butt-ugly.

[Bobby5280]

All this griping about Clearview is coming down to matters of taste and nothing else.

I hate to break it to other road geeks, FHWA Series Gothic is nowhere near the prettiest font ever developed. Honestly, it's a fairly ugly typeface on its own. Even the cleaned up Interstate typeface re-drawn by Tobias Frere Jones, arguably one of the very best type designers in the world, is still pretty harsh looking. And it has a great deal more creative functionality built into it than the Series Gothic fonts. The attachment to Series Gothic by way of many road geeks is deeply pinned in nostalgia and resistance to change for something better.

My feeling on the topic: if the FHWA removes interim approval of Clearview Highway for positive contrast legends they need to eliminate the current version of Series Gothic as well. It is an old, outdated, obsolete typeface. it does inspire nostalgia, but it is very very deficient when it comes to complying to the rules of the latest edition of the MUTCD. There is a deep need for something a whole hell of a lot better.

[jakeroot]

All this griping about Clearview is coming down to matters of taste and nothing else.

I hate to break it to other road geeks, FHWA Series Gothic is nowhere near the prettiest font ever developed. Honestly, it's a fairly ugly typeface on its own. Even the cleaned up Interstate typeface re-drawn by Tobias Frere Jones, arguably one of the very best type designers in the world, is still pretty harsh looking. And it has a great deal more creative functionality built into it than the Series Gothic fonts. The attachment to Series Gothic by way of many road geeks is deeply pinned in nostalgia and resistance to change for something better.

My feeling on the topic: if the FHWA removes interim approval of Clearview Highway for positive contrast legends they need to eliminate the current version of Series Gothic as well. It is an old, outdated, obsolete typeface. it does inspire nostalgia, but it is very very deficient when it comes to complying to the rules of the latest edition of the MUTCD. There is a deep need for something a whole hell of a lot better.

Holy shit couldn't have said it better myself. Maybe we should try Transport? It's kind of old-ish, but it's at least moderately attractive. My analogy for most of the AARoads' Clearview haters (and in turn, the FHWA) is as follows:

User has a 1975 Honda Civic
User is given a 2015 Honda Civic
User tests 2015 Honda Civic
User finds 2015 Civic is just as reliable and powerful
User outlaws 2015 Civic because it's not better
User mandates everyone drive 1975 Civic because nothing is functionally better

So, the '75 Civic was functionally identical to the 2015 model. But the bit that most people miss is that the 2015 Civic is a lot more modern, cleaner, friendlier, and so on. It's more than just function these days.

[myosh_tino]

I would expect that anything that doesn't presently conform - mainly Clearview negative contract signs (yes, I'm looking at you PA and TX) would have to be changed out as soon as possible.

Someone ought to point that out to the Boston Transportation Department.  Despite a pointed denial in January of 2012 from the department's spokesman, and despite being specifically prohibited in the Massachusetts supplement to the MUTCD, Boston is in the midst of replacing all its street signs with...you guessed it, new signs using Clearview.  They're all over the Brighton neighborhood where I work and they're butt-ugly.

Not sure about other parts of the country but in California, cities are pretty much free to use whatever typeface they prefer on street blades.  My city uses Bookman on street blades while others use Clearview (Santa Clara) or FHWA Series (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Mountain View to name a few) or some other custom font (Los Gatos and Saratoga).

[jakeroot]

I would expect that anything that doesn't presently conform - mainly Clearview negative contract signs (yes, I'm looking at you PA and TX) would have to be changed out as soon as possible.

Someone ought to point that out to the Boston Transportation Department.  Despite a pointed denial in January of 2012 from the department's spokesman, and despite being specifically prohibited in the Massachusetts supplement to the MUTCD, Boston is in the midst of replacing all its street signs with...you guessed it, new signs using Clearview.  They're all over the Brighton neighborhood where I work and they're butt-ugly.

Not sure about other parts of the country but in California, cities are pretty much free to use whatever typeface they prefer on street blades.  My city uses Bookman on street blades while others use Clearview (Santa Clara) or FHWA Series (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Mountain View to name a few) or some other custom font (Los Gatos and Saratoga).

Same story in the NW area. I've seen countless type faces on street blades. When I first heard that Clearview probably wasn't going to get the green light anymore, my first thought was "Well, at least you'll still get to see them on street blades". Apparently that's not the case in some cities.

[J N Winkler]

All this griping about Clearview is coming down to matters of taste and nothing else.

Not quite--there are genuine quality assurance concerns that have to do with training and software provisioning.  Technicians that can handle the FHWA series acceptably often cannot wrangle Clearview; Clearview fonts often display incorrectly in plan sheets owing to signcad.rsc version mismatch (if using SignCAD) or failure to have the appropriate font resource files available; etc.

I hate to break it to other road geeks, FHWA Series Gothic is nowhere near the prettiest font ever developed. Honestly, it's a fairly ugly typeface on its own. Even the cleaned up Interstate typeface re-drawn by Tobias Frere Jones, arguably one of the very best type designers in the world, is still pretty harsh looking. And it has a great deal more creative functionality built into it than the Series Gothic fonts. The attachment to Series Gothic by way of many road geeks is deeply pinned in nostalgia and resistance to change for something better.

Actually, I think Interstate is worse than the vanilla FHWA series, which have a certain vernacular appeal, partly because the intercharacter spacing in Interstate is generally narrower.  Highway signs that use the FHWA series at the classic (fairly wide) spacing convey an air of authority that is absent from Sainsburys product packaging, which is the main application of Interstate that I am aware of.  Tobias Frere-Jones does not rank quite as high on my personal pantheon of type gods as Hermann Zapf or Adrian Frutiger.

[Zeffy]

All this griping about Clearview is coming down to matters of taste and nothing else.

I hate to break it to other road geeks, FHWA Series Gothic is nowhere near the prettiest font ever developed. Honestly, it's a fairly ugly typeface on its own. Even the cleaned up Interstate typeface re-drawn by Tobias Frere Jones, arguably one of the very best type designers in the world, is still pretty harsh looking. And it has a great deal more creative functionality built into it than the Series Gothic fonts. The attachment to Series Gothic by way of many road geeks is deeply pinned in nostalgia and resistance to change for something better.

My feeling on the topic: if the FHWA removes interim approval of Clearview Highway for positive contrast legends they need to eliminate the current version of Series Gothic as well. It is an old, outdated, obsolete typeface. it does inspire nostalgia, but it is very very deficient when it comes to complying to the rules of the latest edition of the MUTCD. There is a deep need for something a whole hell of a lot better.

It doesn't matter how dated Highway Gothic is - the sole reason Clearview was ever allowed was because the FHWA thought it increased legibility over the normal FHWA Series fonts. Now that TTI's study on those typefaces has yielded that Clearview has NO statistical advantage over FHWA Series E, there is absolutely no reason to change the font period. It isn't a matter of taste - it's a matter of not spending any more money on a study that has now been depreciated. When and if another typeface comes along that may be more legible than the FHWA Series, we'll go through this same process again. But we do NOT need to experiment with other typefaces until then.

Not sure about other parts of the country but in California, cities are pretty much free to use whatever typeface they prefer on street blades.  My city uses Bookman on street blades while others use Clearview (Santa Clara) or FHWA Series (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Mountain View to name a few) or some other custom font (Los Gatos and Saratoga).

Somerville, a borough near me uses some serif font for their street blades, Trenton uses the OLD FHWA fonts, my town generally uses FHWA or Clearview, and Franklin Township tends to use Impact/Deep bold Helvetica.

[DaBigE]

All this griping about Clearview is coming down to matters of taste and nothing else.

I hate to break it to other road geeks, FHWA Series Gothic is nowhere near the prettiest font ever developed. Honestly, it's a fairly ugly typeface on its own. Even the cleaned up Interstate typeface re-drawn by Tobias Frere Jones, arguably one of the very best type designers in the world, is still pretty harsh looking. And it has a great deal more creative functionality built into it than the Series Gothic fonts. The attachment to Series Gothic by way of many road geeks is deeply pinned in nostalgia and resistance to change for something better.

My feeling on the topic: if the FHWA removes interim approval of Clearview Highway for positive contrast legends they need to eliminate the current version of Series Gothic as well. It is an old, outdated, obsolete typeface. it does inspire nostalgia, but it is very very deficient when it comes to complying to the rules of the latest edition of the MUTCD. There is a deep need for something a whole hell of a lot better.

I haven't deeply searched the other threads on this topic, but I don't believe anyone was ever giving the FHWA Series any beauty awards. Face it, font choice is always going to be subject to personal preference. Arguing that FHWA's is "obsolete" is questionable at best. How many times don't you still see the use of Courier (not necessarily on signs, but rather on websites, documents, etc.)? Based on Highway Gothic being "obsolete", Courier should have died with the manual typewriter.

The point that a few (many?) of us don't like is the misuse of the interim approval and subsequent bastardization of Clearview. Secondly, as another subject thread points out, more studies are finding little to no difference in legibility tests. Does Highway Gothic have flaws? Yes. Does Clearview have flaws? Yes. Was the testing/interim approval process flawed? IMO, YES. Correct me if I am wrong, but I sill haven't found any tests that were done with Highway Gothic where the size/kerning of the letters were kept from E(m), but the actual series was changed to Series D, which would effectively reduce the stroke width as Clearview does, yet recycles the existing font. The latest TTI study comes close to doing that.

I don't think anyone will argue that a better font for signage could be developed. But in a time of ever tightening budgets who has the time, money, and resources to go through a proper, unbiased, scientific development of a new font, and is it worth it? Until then, I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it. Save our highway dollars for fixing potholes and resolving larger traffic safety issues. No one is dying because they thought an 'o' was an 'e'. Do they still teach contextual reading anymore or has that died with the elimination of cursive writing? If you can't figure out a message based on one or two letters, I think you may have bigger issues.

[jakeroot]

How many times don't you still see the use of Courier (not necessarily on signs, but rather on websites, documents, etc.)? Based on Highway Gothic being "obsolete", Courier should have died with the manual typewriter.

It's not a matter of a font dying. No font has ever died. But at least the W3C didn't outlaw any other fonts because they weren't functionally any better than Courier.

...I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it

"From now on, everyone will be required to drive the 1985 Honda Civic because it has been determined by the Federal Government to be functionally identical to every car built since. Anyone caught driving a newer car will be publicly denounced."

[myosh_tino]

...I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it

"From now on, everyone will be required to drive the 1985 Honda Civic because it has been determined by the Federal Government to be functionally identical to every car built since. Anyone caught driving a newer car will be publicly denounced."

Except the Federal Government never actually said that... 

[DaBigE]

...I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it

"From now on, everyone will be required to drive the 1985 Honda Civic because it has been determined by the Federal Government to be functionally identical to every car built since. Anyone caught driving a newer car will be publicly denounced."

Fonts vs. cars? I hope that's just sarcasm. Thanks for skipping over the whole scientific data and cost argument. It's not like I think outhouses are better than indoor plumbing.

And if you're talking about functionally identical, we should still be driving Model Ts, not an '85 Honda. No one really needs all those fancy electrical gizmos in their car.

[vdeane]

Don't count clearview as dead yet.  Nothing that FHWA does can/will stop MTQ from requiring it on all highway signs.

[jakeroot]

...I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it

"From now on, everyone will be required to drive the 1985 Honda Civic because it has been determined by the Federal Government to be functionally identical to every car built since. Anyone caught driving a newer car will be publicly denounced."

Fonts vs. cars? I hope that's just sarcasm. Thanks for skipping over the whole scientific data and cost argument. It's not like I think outhouses are better than indoor plumbing.

And if you're talking about functionally identical, we should still be driving Model Ts, not an '85 Honda. No one really needs all those fancy electrical gizmos in their car.

Yes it's sarcasm. I'm not really good at arguing, so I just throw out random, often sarcastic jokes, and analogies to help confuse everyone to the point where no one takes me seriously. It might be a disease that I have. 

But nonetheless, I think that we've done enough studying, and here's the conclusion that I've come to:

"Clearview is functionally identical to FHWA Series Gothic"

If that is true, why do we both insist on arguing to the ends of the earth about which is better, when they are apparently the same? As you all have previously stated, this argument is entirely one's aesthetic preference. As such, completely tossing Clearview and all uses of it just seems daft. Each state should be able to use whatever they wish, and we all need to stop arguing as, theoretically, neither side can win.

Don't count clearview as dead yet.  Nothing that FHWA does can/will stop MTQ from requiring it on all highway signs.

I love how laid back Canada is.

[DaBigE]

If that is true, why do we both insist on arguing to the ends of the earth about which is better, when they are apparently the same? As you all have previously stated, this argument is entirely one's aesthetic preference. As such, completely tossing Clearview and all uses of it just seems daft. Each state should be able to use whatever they wish, and we all need to stop arguing as, theoretically, neither side can win.

Agreed. No different than Ford vs Chevy, PC vs Mac. Despite scientific evidence, passion will always play a role. Saw it with my hometown's police department when they had the changing of the guard with police chiefs. One was a Ford guy (the one who retired), the replacement was a Chevy guy. Both companies build respectable police vehicles. Both (at the time) were very comparable in cost. Switching required buying all new roof lights, interior police "stuff" (cage, mounts, etc.), and acquiring new spare parts (at the time the city did their own vehicle maintenance). Fiscally, it was dumb to switch.

Since both fonts are "functionally identical", IMO, cost becomes the next big factor, which is where Clearview loses out.

[jakeroot]

If that is true, why do we both insist on arguing to the ends of the earth about which is better, when they are apparently the same? As you all have previously stated, this argument is entirely one's aesthetic preference. As such, completely tossing Clearview and all uses of it just seems daft. Each state should be able to use whatever they wish, and we all need to stop arguing as, theoretically, neither side can win.

Agreed. No different than Ford vs Chevy, PC vs Mac. Despite scientific evidence, passion will always play a role. Saw it with my hometown's police department when they had the changing of the guard with police chiefs. One was a Ford guy (the one who retired), the replacement was a Chevy guy. Both companies build respectable police vehicles. Both (at the time) were very comparable in cost. Switching required buying all new roof lights, interior police "stuff" (cage, mounts, etc.), and acquiring new spare parts (at the time the city did their own vehicle maintenance). Fiscally, it was dumb to switch.

Since both fonts are "functionally identical", IMO, cost becomes the next big factor, which is where Clearview loses out.

If cost truly is the issue, then I concede. That sounds completely fair to me.

I remember back in the day, arguing Mac v PC. Those were the days.

[J N Winkler]

Don't count clearview as dead yet.  Nothing that FHWA does can/will stop MTQ from requiring it on all highway signs.

Clearview is also now the standard in British Columbia and Alberta.

[jakeroot]

Don't count clearview as dead yet.  Nothing that FHWA does can/will stop MTQ from requiring it on all highway signs.

Clearview is also now the standard in British Columbia and Alberta.

It is, indeed, but BC made it standard in 2006. It's 2014 and FHWA is only just now telling Clearview to take a hike. Clearly one country has a few more hurdles than the other.

http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/publications/Circulars/All/T_Circ/2006/t15-06_v3.pdf

[Bobby5280]

Actually, I think Interstate is worse than the vanilla FHWA series, which have a certain vernacular appeal, partly because the intercharacter spacing in Interstate is generally narrower.  Highway signs that use the FHWA series at the classic (fairly wide) spacing convey an air of authority that is absent from Sainsburys product packaging, which is the main application of Interstate that I am aware of. Tobias Frere-Jones does not rank quite as high on my personal pantheon of type gods as Hermann Zapf or Adrian Frutiger.

Out of type designers working today, Tobias Frere-Jones is arguably the most popular. Erik Spiekermann is the leading contender, if anyone else could have the title of world's most popular type designer. Gotham is the most trendy typeface released in the last 20 years. Interstate was very popular in the 1990s and into the 2000s. Some of Frere-Jones' newer typefaces, like Forza and Tungsten are very popular.

Interstate is more tightly spaced because it is a display typeface for graphic design. The letters in Interstate are definitely more refined and cleaned up than Series Gothic. I wouldn't advocate Interstate be used on highway signs. It's an older typeface and doesn't have the extra features I think are necessary in a traffic sign type family that is up to today's standards.

It isn't a matter of taste - it's a matter of not spending any more money on a study that has now been depreciated. When and if another typeface comes along that may be more legible than the FHWA Series, we'll go through this same process again. But we do NOT need to experiment with other typefaces until then.

If the FHWA is going to go so far as telling states like Texas they can't use Clearview anymore and need to replace all those signs then the opportunity is there to actually get the type right rather than revert to Series 2000 legends, which are hardly any different than the original 1950's letters. At the very least, they need to incorporate native small capitals character sets into Series Gothic fonts if they're going to make Clearview-using states switch back to them. At least provide some improvement with the switch.

I don't think anyone will argue that a better font for signage could be developed. But in a time of ever tightening budgets who has the time, money, and resources to go through a proper, unbiased, scientific development of a new font, and is it worth it? Until then, I'm going to remain in the camp of if it ain't broken, don't mess with it. Save our highway dollars for fixing potholes and resolving larger traffic safety issues.

Who says development of a new traffic sign type family and legibility studies has to take place only at taxpayers' expense? Private companies like Adobe and Google are developing type families for open source use. The US Government could literally have the two companies competing with each other to create the most effective type family.

Since both fonts are "functionally identical", IMO, cost becomes the next big factor, which is where Clearview loses out.

Since when is Series 2000 Gothic free? It's not an open source, public domain typeface. Sign industry specific software may bundle those fonts with the application. I've seen a couple different companies commercially selling versions of Series 2000 Gothic in the $400-$600 price range.

While a Clearview license isn't cheap, it's not really all that expensive if you compare it to materials costs of large traffic signs -like the goofy, erroneous ones that end up having to be replaced over quality control errors.

If I read it right, I saw one person claim Clearview licenses would cost their firm $50,000. Exactly how many sign designers does this firm have? By myself, I design hundreds of custom signs per year, signs that take time to design. They're not something that can be easily cranked out by way of templates built into traffic sign software. One traffic sign firm shouldn't need more than a handful of licenses.

[Bobby5280]

Here's a few images of what Oklahoma DOT is installing in Lawton. The following signs aren't really a failure of Clearview. They're a failure of quality control and examples of bad decision making over size/choice of sign panel, methods of fabrication, etc. They would be every bit as bad if set in Series 2000 Gothic. Honestly, if someone in my company was making signs like this, he would get fired in a short amount of time. We would be losing money from angry customers demanding their signs be fixed.

A bunch of these signs should be replaced, which could cost more than what ODOT spent on Clearview font licenses. The signs should have been designed/built correctly in the first place.



This sign on I-44 in Lawton (Westbound just North of the Cache Road exit) is a perfect example of what I've been complaining about and what can inspire anti-signs advocates to start campaigning against these things if any alternatives appear, like technology developments in cars and mobile devices.

This sign is a mess and its lettering is deteriorating after only a couple or so years of service. The lettering appears to be vinyl alone, not routed aluminum covered in reflective vinyl. It looks like the fabricators had a grab bag of stock letters and were applying them one letter at a time -which doesn't make the slightest bit of sense if you're applying vinyl lettering. You release tape entire lines of copy. Most of the letters in the legend are 14," but check out the "l" in "Great Plains." That's a 17" lowercase "l," and there's a 17" lowercase "r" in "Auditorium." The letter spacing is kind of wacky, especially in the word "Auditorium." Some of the letters aren't even level. It gives the sign a little of that ransom note feel.



This similar sign on I-44 in Lawton (Northbound just South of the Gore Blvd exit) is holding up a little better than its counterpart sign a couple miles North. The fabricators did a slightly better job laying out the copy, although some of the spacing is still screwed up. Note the "s" on the end of "Museums." It is a little strange how they set "Comanche Nat'l" in Clearview 2W while the rest of the legend is in 5WR. The apostrophe in "Nat'l" is upside down. Not to split hairs, but it's really the Comanche Nation Museum, not Comanche National Museum. The other one is the Museum of the Great Plains. Here's the best thing: they misspelled "McMahon."



This overhead sign is on the Westbound lanes of I-44 just North of the Cache Road exit. Parts of the interchange are under re-construction, hence the "closed" banner. Look how BADLY "Wichita Falls" is positioned on the sign. Horrible. There's letter spacing issues on both of these sign panels.



Here's another example showing letter spacing issues. "Lawton" isn't spaced too well. I don't know why "Cache Rd" is set as small as it is, yet tracked so loosely. The "Lawton" and "Cache Rd" letters appear to be Clearview 6W.



These signs look a little better, but I don't know why ODOT put 3' route markers on one panel and 4' route markers on the other panel. I don't particularly care for how those US highway sheilds are shaped.



ODOT installed some signs like these on Rogers Lane (now US-62) not long ago when the exits with Sheridan Road and Fort Sill Blvd were reconfigured. They replaced some larger, button copy signs with these things. Obviously some decision maker found it necessary to make the Clearview-based replacements smaller and cheaper. Yet they've still tried to cram Clearview 5W lettering to fit. This spacing is tighter than what one typically sees on most commercial business signs.



Here's an example for the Fort Sill Blvd exit.



Finally, here's an older, button copy based goof. The copy on the top line was altered when US-62 was re-routed onto Rogers Lane. Even if ODOT didn't have a bunch of existing button copy letters laying around they could have at least used reflective letters set in Series Gothic E/M.

[sammi]

Since when is Series 2000 Gothic free? It's not an open source, public domain typeface. Sign industry specific software may bundle those fonts with the application. I've seen a couple different companies commercially selling versions of Series 2000 Gothic in the $400-$600 price range.

The Standard Alphabets ("Series 2000 Gothic") are actually freely available as a set of outlines on the MUTCD's website, which anyone with sufficient technical experience can recreate into a font. In the United States (IIRC) typeface designs cannot be copyrighted, but font files can. So while the Standard Alphabets are in the public domain, different implementations exist, such as the official collection, Highway Gothic, Blue Highway and Roadgeek 2005, and they can charge as much as they want for their (copyrighted) implementation of the fonts.

[DaBigE]

Since when is Series 2000 Gothic free? It's not an open source, public domain typeface. Sign industry specific software may bundle those fonts with the application. I've seen a couple different companies commercially selling versions of Series 2000 Gothic in the $400-$600 price range.

The Standard Alphabets ("Series 2000 Gothic") are actually freely available as a set of outlines on the MUTCD's website, which anyone with sufficient technical experience can recreate into a font. In the United States (IIRC) typeface designs cannot be copyrighted, but font files can. So while the Standard Alphabets are in the public domain, different implementations exist, such as the official collection, Highway Gothic, Blue Highway and Roadgeek 2005, and they can charge as much as they want for their (copyrighted) implementation of the fonts.

What sammi said. And, I was referring more to the costs associated with changing from one to the other. Yes, both have start-up costs, but those should have been recouped/written-off long ago with the FHWA fonts. It costs virtually nothing to maintain the status quo. With Clearview, you have not only the costs of acquiring the new fonts, but also retooling, assuming the letters are punched out (for those states that still use copy that is riveted onto the BGSs).

[vdeane]

Normally when a state changes sign standards, they only apply them to new signs and don't change existing ones.

[hotdogPi]

Normally when a state changes sign standards, they only apply them to new signs and don't change existing ones.

This doesn't seem to be the case for some states. They replaced them for no reason, wasting money.

[PurdueBill]

Michigan seemed to go overboard for replacing signs with life left just to install Clearview.  Maybe the old signs were more ready for replacement than they looked (even at night), but it looked an awful lot like they were replacing just to get rid of the old typeface.

A major thing that irks me about Clearview is that so many agencies seem to insist on using it wrong.  Despite the FHWA interim approval letters saying that it must only be used for light text on dark background, etc. etc., it keeps getting used in all sorts of inappropriate ways.  The City of Akron is using it on all new street sign blades but not stopping there--it's also on signs like ONCOMING TRAFFIC HAS EXTENDED GREEN, [Bike] MAY USE FULL LANE, etc. that are never supposed to use Clearview.  The FHWA Clearview FAQ has pics of all sorts of bad applications--dark text on light, EXIT ONLY sections, route shields, yellow diamond signs, and so on, not to mention bonkers fraction rectangles.  All of these _decrease_ legibility and the door to that was opened by the probably well-meaning interim approval of Clearview for very limited applications.  If people are going to insist on using it wrong, then FHWA should just take it away as a possibility. 

[PHLBOS]

Of course, I would expect that anything that doesn't presently conform - mainly Clearview negative contract signs (yes, I'm looking at you PA and TX) would have to be changed out as soon as possible.

Add DE, MD & VA to that list as well.  At least PA has gotten better with using Clearview with restraint among their newer highway sign installations.

Clearview started being used circa 2004 Per Wiki.