I would not be able to interpret this on the fly. Why is A-404 on a blue sign, while A-40/E-21/E-26 are separate tabs? Is that the exit number on the white sign kinda buried in the right stack? What is Hauteville-L. and why does that get a white sign, while Oyonnax gets a blue one? Does white mean that Hauteville-L. is accessible only via surface streets, while Oyonnax is on the freeway?
My answers are necessarily speculative since the French do not put their guidelines for direction signing online and I don't have copies of the print publications. I do, however, have an extensive collection of sign design sheets (well over 1000 pages' worth) culled from
dossiers de consultation des entreprises issued by the French equipment ministry and the
conseil général for the Haut-Rhin
département. So:
* Normal practice is for route cartouches to appear as external tabs on pull-through signs, and on the actual sign panel on advance guide and exit direction signs. I do not know the justification for doing things this way.
* Yes, that is an exit number on one of the white signboards. France has numbered junctions since at least 1982, when provision for them was made in an interministerial instruction on direction signing. Older junction number cartouches had the word "sortie" (italicized, in the L3/L4 typeface) instead of an exit symbol. The exit symbol was a later development, appearing around 1990, and I think it was borrowed from Spain. It has spread elsewhere in Europe, notably to Sweden and Finland in recent years.
* "Hauteville-L." is Hauteville-Lompnes, a mountain town south of the A40 corridor. In this context I believe it actually indicates the town, rather than functioning as an interchange label. (The distinction is nontrivial. If you look at this area closely in Google Maps, you will see that
autoroutes have black-on-orange placards superimposed near junctions, with some having number labels while others have name labels. "Hauteville-Lompnes" appears as a name label on the A404 near the A40 junction, which is numbered 8 on the A40.) The junction complex gives access to the town of Hauteville-Lompnes from both directions of the A40 by means of the D1084 and D12. Hauteville-Lompnes is not on the
réseau vert, nor are the roads leading to it part of the
réseau vert, so it appears against a white background. Towns on the
réseau vert reached from the
autoroute by roads on the
réseau vert get white-on-green signing. In general, the color of the last few signs for an exit off the
autoroute is appropriate for the standard of the route or route branch reached through the exit. Multiple colors are used in exit signing assemblies where there is the possibility of reaching different types of routes through the same exit.
* The connection between D1084 and D12 is made just outside a
Zone de développement. On French guide signs in general, though not this particular set, you will see a bewildering variety of acronyms beginning with Z (e.g.,
Z.I.,
Z.A.I.), and all you really need to know is that the Z stands for
zone and refers to the fact that the location signed is a designated development area for factories, offices, etc. It is similar to "business park," "office park," "industrial estate," etc. signing in the UK and the USA, or
polígono industrial signing in Spain.
* Oyonnax appears on blue because it is the terminus town and control city for the A404.
On the left set, what is Bourg en B. and why does that get a separate sign instead of being on the same sign as the other three destinations?
"Bourg en B." = Bourg-en-Bresse. It is the next significant town on the A40 itinerary. It appears separately from Paris, Lyon, and Strasbourg because those are long-distance control cities for the A40 as specified by the
schéma directeur de signalisation, which for the
réseau vert (which includes all
autoroutes and all green-line
routes nationales) has to be approved by the Minister for Equipment himself. (Typically this is done on the advice of senior civil servants, which--as in the UK--limits the actual scope for ministerial caprice.)
also, is there a second split off in the distance? With the white stuff splitting off A-404? Again, surface-level streets?
No. What actually happens is that traffic at the A40/A404 interchange (A40 junction 8, as indicated on the sign) is split into two streams after it leaves the A40. One stream goes to the A404, while the other goes onto the surface roads required to access Hauteville-Lompnes. The Hauteville-Lompnes traffic never actually touches the A404, so the sign does not describe a future exit off the A404.
In general, are initials like L. and B. well-known to the local populace? What about other Europeans not from France? Given that one can easily drive to France, and many do, are the initials a problem for foreigners? Or am I just from the wrong continent on this one?
I don't think you are from the wrong continent. I have problems with the initialisms on French signs and I have to point out that these examples are far from the worst. My collection has multiple examples of initialisms, some involving fraction bars, like "Bourg des Ctes," "s/l," "s/," "/s," etc. Some are easy to recognize and interpret since they are abbreviations for common French words and phrases like
sur,
sous,
sur la, etc. which are used throughout the country and are familiar both to French drivers and anyone with some rudimentary knowledge of French. Others are specific to particular placenames and I think they are used on the assumption that they will be decoded easily by locals, who drive frequently on the corridors in question, and by outside drivers who study a French road atlas in advance of their journeys.
In this case, if you had a French road atlas (as I do, though not with me), and studied the A40 itinerary before you set out, you would be likely to correlate "Bourg en B." and "Hauteville-L." with locations shown in the atlas. Google Maps also allows you to search by the abbreviated placenames and comes up with plausible expansions very quickly. In fact, I located this interchange in Google Maps by doing a search for {Bourg en B., France}.
A rule of thumb is that if the initialism is the trailing part of a town name, as is the case for both Bourg-en-Bresse and Hauteville-Lompnes, it is a less important part of the town name which gives geographical specificity to the first part of the town name. The "en B." part of "Bourg en B." is a prepositional phrase which allows Bourg-en-Bresse to be distinguished from the other Bourgs all over France, including Bourg des Comptes. But if you are on the A40, the only Bourg which could logically be pointed to on that sign is Bourg-en-Bresse (since Bourg des Comptes is clear on the other side of the country, near the Atlantic coast, while the other Bourgs are similarly remote), so the "en B." part does not need to be spelled out. Similarly, "-L." in "Hauteville-L." allows Hauteville-Lompnes to be distinguished from all the other Hautevilles in France, but does not need to be spelled out because the only Hauteville nearby is Hauteville-Lompnes.
Frankly, I find the initialisms to be more of a nuisance when going through French sign design sheets than when actually driving in or riding in a bus in France. My knowledge of French geography is very shaky, though in the summer of 2009 I made a systematic effort to remedy this by reading a French road atlas from cover to cover. I therefore need to have initialisms like "s/L" spelled out (as, e.g., "sur Loire" rather than, say, "sur Lot") to orient myself when I am sitting in my study looking at sign design sheets.
Author
Topic: French Autoroutes (Read 31614 times)