You Know you are in this state

[ran4sh]

I wish more places would just do what NYC does, post "15 St" on signage, which is understood to mean Fifteenth Street.

That's lame. It's not "Fifteen Street", it's "Fifteenth Street", which reduces to numbers as "15th", not "15".

In Atlanta, older signs for the 10 St/14 St exit spelled out the number, "Tenth St" "Fourteenth St". About 2 decades ago GDOT changed it to "10th St" etc.

Spelling out the words for ordinals is even worse, because it's harder to recognize at speed ("Fourteenth" and "Fifteenth" look sort of close at a glance, as do "Second" and "Seventh") and it's sort of pretentious–what are you gonna do when you get to the newer parts of the city, write out "One hundred and twenty-second Street"? No, you're going to use digits, so stop playing grammar school games about writing out low numbers and use digits starting at 1st St.

It's interesting that you oppose the use of words instead of numerals on the basis of it being harder to read at speed, but you don't recognize that the NY way of omitting the "th" is also meant to be easier to read at speed.

Because that's not the same thing.

Our brains work on quick pattern recognition. Reading doesn't happen by you consciously looking at each glyph in a word and piecing them together–your brain recognizes a pattern in the glyphs and says "Oh, hey, this word looks a lot like 'stork' cause it's five letters and it's got an ascender in the second and fifth slots." (Obviously, there's a bit more that goes into it than that, but that's the basic idea.) This tendency in mental processing is why the 2009 MUTCD required lower-case text on destination messages, because the unique shapes of words set in mixed-case text helps speed mental text processing.

The main problem with writing out ordinal numbers is that a lot of English words for numbers are so damn long. Sure, you can spot the difference between "stork" and "stark" pretty quickly, but how about "Storkanstarkandstorkand" versus "Storkanstorkandstarkand"? At speed, Fourteenth and Fifteenth are a long string of letters starting with "F" and ending with "teenth". "Fxxteenth"–better take a good look closer to figure out what those x's really are. "Seventh" and "Second" also more or less blend together into "Sexxnxx".

Meanwhile "15th" and "29th" are two digits and two letters, or four characters total. Digits are generally pretty easy to tell apart from one another (although long strings of digits are not, but fortunately it's rare to get a street with more than a three-digit number outside of Utah), and it's such a short expression, so this is extremely easy to parse. "Seventeenth" is 11 characters and "17th" is 4, which means you can eliminate 7 characters that your brain doesn't have to parse.

Meanwhile, going from "17th" to "17" only eliminates two characters, at the expense of making the sign less accurate to spoken language, like you might get from someone saying their address to you or giving you directions. Including the ordinal gives the brain context to why this number is here, since it is seeing "##th" and going "Oh, this is an ordinal number, which usually only appears as a numbered street or avenue", as opposed to just "##" and thinking "Okay, why is this number here?" and having to actually read the surrounding text to glean the context that this is a numbered street. (Fortunately, the way signs are constructed in the US means that bare cardinal numbers that aren't set off from the main text by way of an exit tab or shield don't appear on guide sign legends much, although there are outliers like "29 Palms" where they do.)

To be clear, New York signs don't use the number alone. They use the number without the ordinal suffix, but still with the designator such as "Av" or "St".

At no point have I ever been confused about what a BGS in New York is referring to when it reads "233 St" or similar.

And for the street signs themselves there is a benefit to leaving off the suffix, it saves a significant amount of sign material due to the large amount of street names in New York that are numbers. Sure you could say that taking "th" off of one "5 Av" sign has minimal saving, but taking it off of hundreds of such signs is what makes it worth it.

[Henry]

Also in GA, there was a time when Series D without the dotted i's and j's was on every freeway sign, although it's now getting phased out in favor of Series EEM, as the new signs in Atlanta will prove.

[ran4sh]

Leaving off the dots on the i's (and j's) was an error only found on that specific series of signs (the ones installed 1999-2000). Older and newer signs that were also in the Series D era had the correct font. It just so happened that the 1999-2000 sign replacements were so widespread across the state, in part because the Interstate exit numbers were converted to mileage-based at that time.

Most of Atlanta's BGSes are already upgraded to MUTCD standard. It's mostly the other parts of the state that still have Series D signage.

[stevashe]

To be clear, New York signs don't use the number alone. They use the number without the ordinal suffix, but still with the designator such as "Av" or "St".

At no point have I ever been confused about what a BGS in New York is referring to when it reads "233 St" or similar.

And for the street signs themselves there is a benefit to leaving off the suffix, it saves a significant amount of sign material due to the large amount of street names in New York that are numbers. Sure you could say that taking "th" off of one "5 Av" sign has minimal saving, but taking it off of hundreds of such signs is what makes it worth it.

I'm sure it does save money, but I don't think that's the primary consideration, since even when extra space is available on the sign (presumably because all those overhead signs are a standard size), NYC doesn't seem to make use of it to add the ordinal.

[Mergingtraffic]

No option lanes when there is space to restripe the road, many left exits not many left or right turn lanes when there's space to provide it....hooray you're in CT!

[kphoger]

Am I the only one who's bothered by both Exit 140 and Exit 125B/D being "SE 15th St"?

I wish more places would just do what NYC does, post "15 St" on signage, which is understood to mean Fifteenth Street.

That's lame. It's not "Fifteen Street", it's "Fifteenth Street", which reduces to numbers as "15th", not "15".

Because that's not the same thing ... going from "17th" to "17" only eliminates two characters, at the expense of making the sign less accurate to spoken language, like you might get from someone saying their address to you or giving you directions. Including the ordinal gives the brain context to why this number is here, since it is seeing "##th" and going "Oh, this is an ordinal number, which usually only appears as a numbered street or avenue", as opposed to just "##" and thinking "Okay, why is this number here?" and having to actually read the surrounding text to glean the context that this is a numbered street.

In general, I disagree that leaving off the ordinal would cause any confusion.  "13 St" is really easy to read as "13th St"–possibly even easier if the 'th' isn't superscripted in the latter case.

On the other hand, there are some places that use plain numbers for their roads.  For example, this is not "105th Rd E".  It's "County Road 105 E".

But back on the first hand, I can't think of anywhere that would cause any actual confusion.  There's probably somewhere that a 15th Street appears near a 15 Road, because of city versus county numbering, but I'm betting those are quite the exceptions to the rule.

[hotdogPi]

In general, I disagree that leaving off the ordinal would cause any confusion.  "13 St" is really easy to read as "13th St"–possibly even easier if the 'th' isn't superscripted in the latter case.

21 St. looks like part of the ordinal.

From the OP of the original Worst of Road Signs thread:

[kphoger]

In general, I disagree that leaving off the ordinal would cause any confusion.  "13 St" is really easy to read as "13th St"–possibly even easier if the 'th' isn't superscripted in the latter case.

21 St. looks like part of the ordinal.

And what's wrong with that?

[US 89]

In general, I disagree that leaving off the ordinal would cause any confusion.  "13 St" is really easy to read as "13th St"–possibly even easier if the 'th' isn't superscripted in the latter case.

21 St. looks like part of the ordinal.

And what's wrong with that?

Might run into some confusion in cities with both numbered Streets and Avenues. This is not an issue in OKC but in a place like Phoenix I can see wanting that extra clarification.

[kphoger]

You mean like New York, which is where this conversation started?

https://goo.gl/maps/qBR1vZVorwWzyobEA

[Scott5114]

Am I the only one who's bothered by both Exit 140 and Exit 125B/D being "SE 15th St"?

This confused the hell out of me when I was a young enough kid, because 125B was our "home exit". We went up to Edmond for something and were on the way back and I was sure we'd missed our exit, so I spoke up, and my parents had to assure me it was a different SE 15th Street.

Though I'm really not sure what you could do here that wouldn't run afoul of the MUTCD recommendation of not mixing city names and street names. Maybe it would be worth it to ignore that and just sign "SE 15th St/Del City" and "SE 15th St/Edmond" (although in the latter case, "Edmond" already applies due to a "Next # Exits" sign, so it'd technically be redundant).

This is actually the second instance of two exits on I-35 in Oklahoma carrying the same legend. In Murray County, there's two exits for "US-77/Turner Falls Area".

[kphoger]

In Murray County, there's two exits for "US-77/Turner Falls Area".

Just noticed that one yesterday, and I think it's worse.

[mrsman]

You mean like New York, which is where this conversation started?

https://goo.gl/maps/qBR1vZVorwWzyobEA

the nexus of the universe.

[US 89]

Am I the only one who's bothered by both Exit 140 and Exit 125B/D being "SE 15th St"?

This confused the hell out of me when I was a young enough kid, because 125B was our "home exit". We went up to Edmond for something and were on the way back and I was sure we'd missed our exit, so I spoke up, and my parents had to assure me it was a different SE 15th Street.

Though I'm really not sure what you could do here that wouldn't run afoul of the MUTCD recommendation of not mixing city names and street names. Maybe it would be worth it to ignore that and just sign "SE 15th St/Del City" and "SE 15th St/Edmond" (although in the latter case, "Edmond" already applies due to a "Next # Exits" sign, so it'd technically be redundant).

I-15 has interchanges with five Main Streets and two Center Streets in Utah County alone. The solution they use on signs there is to put the city name immediately before the street name (i.e. "Lehi Main St", "Provo Center St"). I don't think that's really a violation of the MUTCD guidance, as the city name in this case isn't really a control point - it's more just a distinguishing factor to identify exactly which one you're talking about. That phrasing is how most locals would identify those streets in conversation.

[paulthemapguy]

Derailed

[fillup420]

I feel like North Carolina is the only state that signs highways like this on street blades. Putting the HWY at the end makes it read like "East NC 150 Highway" which just sounds wrong.

[fillup420]

South Carolina by the sheer number of directional intersections, and also this thing they do, placing a banner above a shield on a BGS:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.153955,-79.8785504,3a,15y,86.83h,88.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s___eaWENYhD80EXYgzbp3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

And pretty much everything else SCDOT does. They're such a weird (and horrible) egg of a DOT. The stuff they do either no other DOT really does, or it's more characteristic of the Midwest than the South.

South Carolina really is an anomaly when it comes to road design and sign style. Its a stark contrast from North Carolina who more-or-less follows the MUTCD and makes a point to have 90-degree intersections. I have driven around both states extensively, and its a night/day difference in road and signage quality.

In SC its always fun to see an intersection that obviously used to be directional, but has been updated probably because of safety issues. Like this one at the JCT of US 78 and 178, which has actually been upgraded since the last time I drove through there in 2019

[kphoger]

I feel like North Carolina is the only state that signs highways like this on street blades. Putting the HWY at the end makes it read like "East NC 150 Highway" which just sounds wrong.

That's how highways are commonly referred to in the Missouri Ozarks.  Around Branson, for example, you can hear people refer to "76 Highway" or "BB Highway" or "65 Highway".

[wanderer2575]

On the other hand, North Carolina aligns adjacent BGS' bottom-justified, which makes down arrows on different signs line up. I'm not sure if other states do something similar (usually a state that doesn't make BGS the same height, aligns them center-justified on a gantry).

Michigan does this, although as narrow trichord (triangular) gantries are being used more often I'm seeing more instances of signs center-aligned on the structure, which I think looks sloppy.

South Carolina by the sheer number of directional intersections, and also this thing they do, placing a banner above a shield on a BGS:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.153955,-79.8785504,3a,15y,86.83h,88.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s___eaWENYhD80EXYgzbp3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Michigan does that with construction signs.

[bcroadguy]

You know you're in Washington when you see Bott's dots and a small yellow curb instead of a double yellow line

Example

[zachary_amaryllis]

colorado: land of stoners and snowboarders.... and where you'll likely see a $3000 bike strapped to the top of a $600 car.

[Scott5114]

colorado: land of stoners and snowboarders.... and where you'll likely see a $3000 bike strapped to the top of a $600 car.

I mean, props to anyone that has figured out how to prioritize so they can spend their money on what's important to them.

[TheGrassGuy]

You know you're in New Jersey when you see 500-600s county routes everywhere.

(Exceptions include Hudson, Monmouth, and Bergen counties)

[1995hoo]

Looking at the discussion further up the page about whether to omit the ordinal designator, I'm wondering whether the people who purport to find "15 St" or "2 Av" confusing also find it confusing to see today's date written as June 28, 2021, because there's no ordinal designator to clarify what "28" means.

[STLmapboy]

You probably can guess this state pretty easily. I count at least 6 distinct ways you would know that this is in this state, even without the presence of the others. Anyone care to guess them?

Texas U-turn, obsessive clearance signage, big/bold stack interchange, style of traffic signal, frontage roads, Lone Star decorations on the ramps.