Atlanta

[J N Winkler]

For reasons I can't fathom, Georgia is replacing its signage (with its weird compressed FHWA font), not with Clearview, but with old skool signage with really big letters.

The old GDOT standard was FHWA Series E Modified with 16" caps/12" lowercase.  Sometime in the mid-nineties, GDOT decided to replace it with "Georgia font," which was basically its interpretation of mixed-case FHWA Series D (which did not exist in an officially approved version at the time) with the dot omitted from lowercase i.  Georgia font was used at 20" caps/15" lowercase.  The engineering gamble, which GDOT did not win in any convincing way, was that the 25% increase in height would more than compensate for the intrinsically lower legibility of Series D compared to Series E Modified, giving drivers more reading distance for essentially the same sign panel area.  (It is probable that the reading distance remained almost exactly the same.  Series D has an intrinsic legibility of about 0.6 meters per millimeter of letter height, while Series E Modified is 25% higher at 0.75.)  In the last three or four years GDOT has given up on Georgia font and gone back to Series E Modified, while retaining 20" caps/15" lowercase and cutting horizontal margins down to far less than specification to keep sign panel area down, as is demonstrated by Alex's picture upthread of the SR 21/Port Wentworth advance guide sign.

[tdindy88]

I may be making a trip with a friend to Atlanta a week from this Sunday. I'd better get all the pictures I can of the old-style signs. The Georgia Font thing was always something I liked seeing as it was different, and to help that it was still a FHWA font to boot. Well, at least you aren't going to Clearview...

[Tom958]

Well, it's a losing battle to pit my own casual observations against J N Winkler's encyclopedic knowledge, but... I always thought that the reason that Georgia went to what I've heard described as its compressed font was to reduce letter width in order to be able to fit more text into a given sign width and thereby describe the destinations served by closely-spaced exits more elaborately. I've never liked the font, and to me it appears less readable than its predecessor, but if

It is probable that the reading distance remained almost exactly the same.

maybe it wasn't such a bad idea.

As for timing, there were some false starts with the Georgia font, but it was all but ubiquitous by the time of the '96 Olympics. And neatly done, too.

I'll probably be cursed and reviled for saying this, but... to me, staying with the Georgia font would've been defensible-- it was created to solve a specific problem, and for all of its shortcomings, it's lead to signage that's (mostly) neat and consistent. Going to Clearview would've been defensible-- it was meticulously crafted to address the same issue as the Georgia font was, two neighboring states are slowly adopting it, and I personally prefer addressing problems through finesse rather than through brute force; in this case, really big letters.    Going back to old skool was not-- it's as though GDOT has forgotten why they invented the Georgia font in the first place. The obvious difference in letter size in this photo bears that out:



Having said all of this, I wish I'd made an effort to track whether sign legends have gotten less wordy with the introduction of old skool.

I've seen zero evidence of this, but I can't help but suspect that Clearview is regarded by some at GDOT as an element of the Agenda 21 conspiracy, and that GDOT will not be duped into using it, unlike the hapless Texans.  That may be because Jerry Stargell, longtime spokesman for GDOT, once told me that one of the purposes of building four-lane highways across the trackless wastes of rural Georgia was to enable preachers to prosthelytize the gospel of Jesus Christ more effectively. That and the fact that the reintroduction of old skool coincided with the revision of the MUTCD to dictate that two lane exits with optional lanes shall be signed exactly the same as ones where both lanes are being dropped, and that LEFT placards must be placed at left exits even as the introduction of indexed exit tabs and APL signs makes them redundant... it's as though there was this pent-up reservoir of stupid, and the dam has broken. 

But that's just me, I guess. 

I may be making a trip with a friend to Atlanta a week from this Sunday. I'd better get all the pictures I can of the old-style signs.

By all means do, but there are still plenty left. It's not as though seconds count. And welcome to our fair city.

[Tom958]

Double post! On a different topic: GA 316...

More for me to have to rephotograph for a future AARoads update...

Indeed. At this rate, though, it won't be for a long while. Having said that, if there's some sort of breakthrough, now it's up to me to document it here. In fact, I'd be somewhat surprised but not shocked if traffic was already using the new GA 20 bridge.

One thing I didn't mention before: There's a gar-normous pile of fill dirt to the northwest of the project site, well outside the right of way. I'm guessing that it's the spoils from excavation of the new mainline of 316 under GA 20, and that it'll be placed mostly on the north side of 316 for the westbound frontage road.

Oh, about this photo:



I was a bit hurried when I took it because I was going to Athens, and the left lane of 316 that I was in to take the photo is compulsory left turn onto GA 20, so I had to work on merging right PDQ. A second lane for EB 316 is added on the right, after the ramp meets the frontage road. Not an ideal arrangement for the current detour, IMO, but on concrete pavement motorists often follow the pavement joints instead of the painted lines, so if the two coincide, at least there'll be fewer differences of opinion among motorists as to where the lanes are.

[J N Winkler]

Well, it's a losing battle to pit my own casual observations against J N Winkler's encyclopedic knowledge, but... I always thought that the reason that Georgia went to what I've heard described as its compressed font was to reduce letter width in order to be able to fit more text into a given sign width and thereby describe the destinations served by closely-spaced exits more elaborately. I've never liked the font, and to me it appears less readable than its predecessor, but if

It is probable that the reading distance remained almost exactly the same.

maybe it wasn't such a bad idea.

Your words are kind, but I am somewhat limited in that my knowledge is "office" knowledge, since I haven't ever driven in Georgia and haven't even been in the state other than to change planes at Atlanta Hartsfield more than ten years ago.

This said, I think your theory for the adoption of Georgia font is plausible.  My own assumption has been that GDOT was looking for a cheap way to get ahead of the curve in accommodating the elderly.  There were a number of research reports in the early nineties suggesting that reading distance for signs would have to be increased by about 20%-25% in order to accommodate the diminished visual acuity of older drivers.  Clearview was developed as one way of achieving this, and Georgia font has always seemed to me to be another.  The gold standard, of course, is just to increase letter size 25% while keeping the typeface the same, and accept the size penalties.  This is ultimately what GDOT has done.

Having said all of this, I wish I'd made an effort to track whether sign legends have gotten less wordy with the introduction of old skool.

Actually, with TransPI you can now do this tracking in arrears, by looking at the construction plans.  Setting work type equal to "Signing" will pull up the 276 or so signing contracts GDOT has in the database.  You can also choose route and milepost combinations to shave the results down to a sample size that is manageable for close analysis.

The database includes construction plans from three periods:  original "old skool" (16" UC/12" LC Series E Modified), Georgia font (20" UC/15" LC Series D), and new "old skool" (20" UC/15" LC Series E Modified).  My impression is that GDOT used some techniques back in the "old skool" days that were allowed to lapse during the Georgia font period and are now being revived to a certain extent, such as:

*  Breaking up individual road names across multiple lines

*  Using abbreviations systematically, even when these are difficult to understand for stranger drivers (e.g. "P'tree," "Indl")

*  More strictly enforcing a hierarchy among the possible destinations that can be signed (bumping less important ones off the action signs)

I've seen zero evidence of this, but I can't help but suspect that Clearview is regarded by some at GDOT as an element of the Agenda 21 conspiracy, and that GDOT will not be duped into using it, unlike the hapless Texans.  That may be because Jerry Stargell, longtime spokesman for GDOT, once told me that one of the purposes of building four-lane highways across the trackless wastes of rural Georgia was to enable preachers to proselytize the gospel of Jesus Christ more effectively.

This doesn't surprise me--a friend of mine who was more active in visiting state DOT offices than I am remembered being offered a religious tract when he visited one in Florida.

This said, I suspect the reason Clearview didn't make it in Georgia may have more to do with timing.  GDOT was, as you say, committed to the Georgia font around the time of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.  Clearview did not have prototypes publicly available until 1998, with the first on-road experimental installations showing up around 2000, approval by individual state DOTs in 2003 (TxDOT was among the first, if not actually the first), and FHWA interim approval in September 2004.  GDOT gave up on Georgia font and returned to Series E Modified around 2010, by which time the Clearview backlash was well underway.  Unlike Pennsylvania and Texas, Georgia doesn't have any prestigious transportation research institutes that carried out major Clearview research and thus has a stake in that type family's continued success, so the "not invented here" syndrome might also have played a role.

Economics might be another factor.  I suspect that close examination of the signing plans would show at least two sign replacements for the same stretch of road within the twenty-year period during which GDOT used the Georgia font.  That frequency is reasonable if it corresponds to the natural lifespan of the sign sheeting used (taking the minimum retroreflectivity requirement into account), but if the sheeting was going to last longer but for the font, then replacement at so short an interval is an unnecessary expense.  Plus, right now, FHWA is much more likely to cancel the Clearview interim approval than it is to substitute Clearview for the FHWA alphabet series in the MUTCD, so by sticking with Series E Modified, GDOT is more securely futureproofed.

[Tom958]

This said, I think your theory for the adoption of Georgia font is plausible.  My own assumption has been that GDOT was looking for a cheap way to get ahead of the curve in accommodating the elderly.  There were a number of research reports in the early nineties suggesting that reading distance for signs would have to be increased by about 20%-25% in order to accommodate the diminished visual acuity of older drivers.  Clearview was developed as one way of achieving this, and Georgia font has always seemed to me to be another.  The gold standard, of course, is just to increase letter size 25% while keeping the typeface the same, and accept the size penalties.  This is ultimately what GDOT has done.

Or they could've gone for 18" Clearview. Seriously.

Having said all of this, I wish I'd made an effort to track whether sign legends have gotten less wordy with the introduction of old skool.

Actually, with TransPI you can now do this tracking in arrears, by looking at the construction plans.  Setting work type equal to "Signing" will pull up the 276 or so signing contracts GDOT has in the database.  You can also choose route and milepost combinations to shave the results down to a sample size that is manageable for close analysis.

The database includes construction plans from three periods:  original "old skool" (16" UC/12" LC Series E Modified), Georgia font (20" UC/15" LC Series D), and new "old skool" (20" UC/15" LC Series E Modified).  My impression is that GDOT used some techniques back in the "old skool" days that were allowed to lapse during the Georgia font period and are now being revived to a certain extent, such as:

*  Breaking up individual road names across multiple lines

*  Using abbreviations systematically, even when these are difficult to understand for stranger drivers (e.g. "P'tree," "Indl")

*  More strictly enforcing a hierarchy among the possible destinations that can be signed (bumping less important ones off the action signs)

Man, I've stepped in it now! 

This said, I suspect the reason Clearview didn't make it in Georgia may have more to do with timing.  GDOT was, as you say, committed to the Georgia font around the time of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.  Clearview did not have prototypes publicly available until 1998, with the first on-road experimental installations showing up around 2000, approval by individual state DOTs in 2003 (TxDOT was among the first, if not actually the first), and FHWA interim approval in September 2004.  GDOT gave up on Georgia font and returned to Series E Modified around 2010, by which time the Clearview backlash was well underway.  Unlike Pennsylvania and Texas, Georgia doesn't have any prestigious transportation research institutes that carried out major Clearview research and thus has a stake in that type family's continued success, so the "not invented here" syndrome might also have played a role.

Economics might be another factor.  I suspect that close examination of the signing plans would show at least two sign replacements for the same stretch of road within the twenty-year period during which GDOT used the Georgia font.  That frequency is reasonable if it corresponds to the natural lifespan of the sign sheeting used (taking the minimum retroreflectivity requirement into account), but if the sheeting was going to last longer but for the font, then replacement at so short an interval is an unnecessary expense.

Well, switching fonts will present issues no matter what the new font is. But surely going to bigger letters will result in bigger signs at some locations, requiring not only new signs but larger support structures as well. And, as the photo I posted shows, sometimes bigger letters flat out won't work.

Plus, right now, FHWA is much more likely to cancel the Clearview interim approval than it is to substitute Clearview for the FHWA alphabet series in the MUTCD, so by sticking with Series E Modified, GDOT is more securely futureproofed.

Say what? 

EDIT: NVM, found this thread 

[Eth]

Economics might be another factor.  I suspect that close examination of the signing plans would show at least two sign replacements for the same stretch of road within the twenty-year period during which GDOT used the Georgia font.  That frequency is reasonable if it corresponds to the natural lifespan of the sign sheeting used (taking the minimum retroreflectivity requirement into account), but if the sheeting was going to last longer but for the font, then replacement at so short an interval is an unnecessary expense.

I suspect you're right about this. Georgia's switch from sequential to milepost exit numbering occurred around 1999-2000, and if memory serves, this was accomplished not by covering over the existing exit numbers, but rather by fabricating entirely new signage.

[Alex]

Economics might be another factor.  I suspect that close examination of the signing plans would show at least two sign replacements for the same stretch of road within the twenty-year period during which GDOT used the Georgia font.  That frequency is reasonable if it corresponds to the natural lifespan of the sign sheeting used (taking the minimum retroreflectivity requirement into account), but if the sheeting was going to last longer but for the font, then replacement at so short an interval is an unnecessary expense.

I suspect you're right about this. Georgia's switch from sequential to milepost exit numbering occurred around 1999-2000, and if memory serves, this was accomplished not by covering over the existing exit numbers, but rather by fabricating entirely new signage.

That is exactly how it went. All signs, including any remaining Interstate button copy signage, were replaced in one fell swoop. This also included the removal of sign lighting fixtures on all Interstates as well.

[brownpelican]

Apparently they haven't decided what to do with the arrow under GA 13. If it were up to me, I'd sign it as a lane drop and let the short recovery lane be a pleasant surprise, but a case could be made for signing it as optional. Either way, though, they should've decided before the sign was erected, don't you think? 

It looks like that arrow you're referring to will eventually allow drivers to stay on 85 or exit to Peachtree St in that particular lane (85 will have four lanes plus the HOT lane). Now the big question is what is Exit 86? For that exit will take away the second right lane.

[ATLRedSoxFan]

I used to live right by that interchange; once the NB GA 400 ramp opens, that's a lot of info to put in cramped quarters..The Cheshire Bridge Rd./Lenox could have been down-sized, and my gut tell's me GDOT is gonna eventually realize that..So for the moment, a work in process..Not uncommon for GDOT.

[Eth]

It looks like that arrow you're referring to will eventually allow drivers to stay on 85 or exit to Peachtree St in that particular lane (85 will have four lanes plus the HOT lane). Now the big question is what is Exit 86? For that exit will take away the second right lane.

In the current configuration, Exit 86 is GA 13 southbound. From what I can tell, the new configuration will have a single exit (still numbered 86) to both GA 13 southbound and GA 400 northbound, with the ramp splitting downstream to serve those two highways.

[Tom958]

The new I-85-GA 400 ramps are open. 

I took some photos, but I don't like them. Maybe I can take some better ones before too long. The interchange is fairly impressive, but it's weirdly hard to photograph well.

Northbound, there are four general lanes of I-85 which split 3-2 at the ramp to 400, with a fourth 85 lane added back on the right just beyond the gore. Now the fourth lane has been striped away to make room for the added lane from the 400 SB to 85 NB ramp while leaving the GA 13 to 85 NB ramp as two lanes on a bridge constructed for one. Not what I would've preferred, but it was the cheapest and least disruptive thing to do.

EDIT: OK, maybe one photo:


which replaced:

[Tomahawkin]

What is the Completion date for the DDI @Jimmy Carter Blvd and I-85? Also are there anymore planned DDI's...And do you guys have suggestions for Interchanges that need DDI's?

[2Co5_14]

What is the Completion date for the DDI @Jimmy Carter Blvd and I-85? Also are there anymore planned DDI's...And do you guys have suggestions for Interchanges that need DDI's?

I have seen a proposal for a DDI at Wade Green Rd & I-75 in Cobb County.
I think they would work well in locations that have significant left-turning traffic and/or situations where the existing bridge can't be easily widened.

[Tom958]

What is the Completion date for the DDI @Jimmy Carter Blvd and I-85?

I dunno, but when I drove by there last week, it looked as though work was at a standstill. The big retaining wall and the curb and gutter in front of it were done, but I didn't see anything else worth noting-- except the lack of something worth noting. Perhaps the bridge modifications have encountered unforeseen problems.

I took a little roadgeeking drive today. First stop: GA 316. The GA 20 bridge is tantalizingly close to completion-- the lanes are painted-- but the approaches need the top coat of asphalt. I took a couple of pics, but I'm not even gonna bother with posting them. Oh: except for this:


How many times have I driven past this and not noticed? This sign is within the posted construction limits, but the button copy arrow sign just beyond isn't. Dare we hope that it'll survive?

Next, down toward the 85/400 interchange by way of 400. After finding that treasure in Gwinnett, I stopped at the Lenox Road/400 interchange, where the last button copy installation that I know of in Georgia took place. It's gone now, but getting back on 400 southbound I took this pic of the MARTA Buckhead Station's new north concourse and footbridges:


A bit further south, passing under MARTA...
 

...taking the new ramp from 400 southbound to 85 northbound...


...and entering I-85. Not the neatest paint job in the world, is it? Just beyond here, I had to brake to allow a crush of traffic from the Lenox-Cheshire Bridge onramp to enter the highway-- on a Sunday afternoon! I've said it before, I'll say it again: I wish they'd taken the opportunity to give that ramp its own merger-free entrance lane.   


I stopped at QuikTrip at Sidney Marcus and 400 for a smoke break and walked over to take this photo, looking eastward under 400. Three different pier designs! The farthest away is the new ramp from 85 southbound to 400 northbound, with a two-column bent in the median and a hammerhead on the south. Would it have just killed 'em to make them the same?


From the other side, looking west. This is my second pass, and the pic still sucks. 



Passing through downtown, two rogue APL signs, for a split without optional lanes. MUTCD? What's that?


This post is getting really big. I think I'll make a separate post for what I actually wanted to show you in the first place. 

[Tom958]

Heading east on I-20 to the new(ish) addition of lanes from I-285 to Panola Road. Here we're passing under the 20 eastbound to 285 northbound ramp, just before the new CD serving traffic coming from 285 and going to Wesley Chapel Road. Formerly there were three mainline lanes for I-20 combining with three narrowing to two from 285 into a five lane roadway, with a two-lane drop at the Wesley Chapel exit. Now, there's a three lane mainline and a three lane CD.


On the CD, the first APL sign I ever saw in Georgia. The third lane from 285 has already ended.


At the split. For a while, the right fork of the optional lane that the arrow indicates didn't exist-- surprise! The bridge at Wesley Chapel was replaced about five years ago, and bays for CD's were provided at considerable expense. They're not being used, though. You'll soon see why.


Just beyond Wesley Chapel, there are still five lanes, with the Wesley Chapel onramp merging into the right lanes, which will soon end. That's why the CD didn't use the bay under the Wesley Chapel bridge: the room was needed to cram six lanes into four as quickly as possible.


And, the crowning glory: after the cramdown, no shoulders at all on this short bridge! I guess the noise barriers ate up whatever money had been budgeted for adding at least a right shoulder. 
AFAIK, that bridge was built in 1960 or so and still exists somewhere under the asphalt. Standard rural shoulders were added in the early '70's and the median was decked over not long after that when the 36 foot median was used for two more lanes. Frugality is a virtue, but I think we could've popped for something better here.


Going back westbound, plenty of noise barriers but no extra lane, and (not pictured) a scary-short onramp from Panola Road.   

[Eth]

I guess Exit 1A for the 400-SB-to-85-NB ramp is about the most sensible number Georgia could use there. It's south of Exit 1, and thus technically out of sequence, but I-185 and I-520 have already made it apparent that "Exit 0" shall not be a thing.

At the split. For a while, the right fork of the optional lane that the arrow indicates didn't exist-- surprise! The bridge at Wesley Chapel was replaced about five years ago, and bays for CD's were provided at considerable expense. They're not being used, though. You'll soon see why.

I pass through here three days a week on my way to work, and this irks me every time. I know, I know, 2009 MUTCD or whatever, but these signs contradict each other. Either there are three lanes or there are four. Either it's an option lane or it isn't. Make up your damn mind. (This also applies to the next interchange at Panola Rd.)

[Tom958]

I pass through here three days a week on my way to work, and this irks me every time. I know, I know, 2009 MUTCD or whatever, but these signs contradict each other. Either there are three lanes or there are four. Either it's an option lane or it isn't. Make up your damn mind. (This also applies to the next interchange at Panola Rd.)

I'm with you, bro. It's disorienting as hell. Spend decades establishing a sensible system for signing optional lane exits, then change it and implement the change with astonishing speed. WTF? The worst spot, which I also spotted yesterday, is at the Williams Street exit downtown, where the white-black and two-black arrow signs are unusually close to each other. I did a double take, and that's not a place where you'd want someone to swerve left to avoid a nonexistent lane drop.

You may have noticed, though, that westbound on I-20, the sign for the ramp to 285 north still has the old (better) white-black arrows even though the sign was replaced relatively recently.

Oh: Another thing I spotted but didn't get a pic of because it was so unexpected: They've replaced the former sensible sign for the Stone Mountain Park main entrance from US 78 eastbound with a double black upward-pointing arrow sign-- where the ramp from GA 236 enters the mainline, a good half a mile before the exit! 

Google Streetview shows both of these, but it's not letting me copy links ATM, so you'll have to look them up yourself if you want to see.

[Tom958]

OMG, make it stop! There are now two more MUTCD noncompliant APL signs replacing this perfectly adequate assembly and the one behind it. WTF, GDOT?

[Alex]

OMG, make it stop! There are now two more MUTCD noncompliant APL signs replacing this perfectly adequate assembly and the one behind it. WTF, GDOT?

What a waste of money, those signs are from what 2012? Talk about getting bang for your tax dollar buck...

[mrsman]

OMG, make it stop! There are now two more MUTCD noncompliant APL signs replacing this perfectly adequate assembly and the one behind it. WTF, GDOT?

What a waste of money, those signs are from what 2012? Talk about getting bang for your tax dollar buck...

While I don't believe that money should be wasted on signs that don't need replacing, I do see a benefit of using the APL signs even when there is no option lane.  For one matter, it makes this type of signage more commonplace.  And in some contexts APLs can also be easier to read than the traditional signs.

Even though they aren't compliant, they're not bad signs.

[Tom958]

While I don't believe that money should be wasted on signs that don't need replacing, I do see a benefit of using the APL signs even when there is no option lane.  For one matter, it makes this type of signage more commonplace.  And in some contexts APLs can also be easier to read than the traditional signs.

Even though they aren't compliant, they're not bad signs.

Have you seen them? They're horrible, much less readable than the signs they replaced (I like the ones a mile north on I-75, btw). Their worst feature is due to the fact that there are three dropped lanes, so there's this unreadable

EXIT^ONLYEXIT^ONLYEXIT^ONLY

thing goin.' I wish I'd gotten photos, but between being on the phone at the time and the raw shock effect of seeing something so reprehensible, my reaction time was too slow. I'll try again next time I'm down that way.

As far as that goes, there used to be an optional lane there; it was striped away decades ago. If it were reintroduced, an APL sign there would make more sense, but the multiple exit onlies would still make it hard to read.

Oh, since we're in the neighborhood, I noticed that that the sign for

Williams St
World Congress Ctr
Ga Dome/Aquarium

now exists in both compressed font and first grade pencil versions. So much for my theory that the compressed font was introduced to enable wordier legends to fit on signs. 

I have photos of that, but I won't post them unless someone asks nicely.

[lordsutch]

FWIW as I get older I'm appreciating APL more; even for younger folks deciphering the stipples at a complex exit or on a wide road can be difficult at highway speeds. I do think FHWA should have adopted the Canadian (or at least Ontario) design that allows omitting the left-hand through lanes to make APL option lane signage simpler, though.

[formulanone]

Arrow Per-Lane seems to wasted in places where a simple EXIT ONLY section would do. I don't mind it for exits with multiple ramps, ramps with multiple exits, or exits in which multiple lanes depart from the through route.

[Tom958]

I'm not an anti-APL militant. It has its uses, like here:


and here:


But Georgia is using it in places where the old way would be better, and spending too much money to do it.

Do you remember... back when big arrow signs were introduced, Georgia went overboard with them, too, using them for several service interchange offramps that happened to have two lanes. They didn't last long before being replaced-- hopefully these rogue APL's won't, either.