Under-signed freeway exits

[djsekani]

Southern California has a lot of complex freeway interchanges, and many of them include off ramps to side streets. My problem is that a large number of them have little to no advance signage letting you know that they exist; there's no signage until you're almost right on top of them, and I only knew they were there because I was following my GPS (and questioning its choice of route the entire time). A couple of examples:

At the end of the westbound 60 freeway as it approaches the East L.A. Interchange, there are five exits, 1A-1E. Three of these are for other freeways (10 west, 101 north, 5 north). The other two are for Santa Fe Street and Soto Street. The Soto Street exist at least gets a small sign letting you know that you need to follow the right lanes at a freeway split to reach the exit. There is no advance signage for Santa Fe Street at all until a minute or so after you've driven past the freeway split, and no indication that you needed to stay in the left lanes before that to reach the exit.

Another example is the south 110 freeway through downtown as it approaches the 10 freeway. Exits to Washington Blvd and Adams Blvd are part of the interchange. There are tons of signs letting drivers know that they have to follow the right lanes towards eastbound I-10 to reach the Adams Blvd exit, but the off-ramp for Washington just pops up out of nowhere in the lanes for westbound I-10, with the first sign for the exit showing up well past a point of no return.

Other examples of exits that come out of nowhere are Riverside Drive in the 110/5 and 2/5 interchanges, Firestone Blvd and Rosecrans Ave in the 105/605 interchange, and Garfield Avenue in the 710/105 interchange.

I have two questions. First, why is this a thing, and second, is it worth bothering to try and fix it?

[TheStranger]

First, why is this a thing

I feel that not signing auxiliary ramps actually is a statewide issue in urban areas.  in Sacramento, the ramp from I-5 south to X Street/Broadway is an auxiliary exit off of the ramp that carries Route 99 south from I-5 to US 50; only advanced signage for this exit is about 600 feet before the ramp splits!

In Oakland, the ramp connecting Route 24 west to I-580 west has an auxiliary exit for Market Street that is not signed at all until one reaches the ramp split itself.

The 580 east to 238 west signage in Hayward is actually rather bizarre in a similar fashion: first advanced sign is for State Route 238, then next two advanced signs are for "TO 880" then next is again for State Route 238 (the portion heading south to downtown Hayward).  Only at the actual ramp split for the two directions of 238 is I-238 even mentioned!
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7024432,-122.1124911,3a,75y,118.94h,86.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJC_fTzu2bm8pyPe4alhKZA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
https://goo.gl/maps/tgKYSvMYJV72
https://goo.gl/maps/1kuv3156nT92

In comparison, the similarly short connector I-380 in San Bruno is never signed only as "TO US 101" or "TO I-280", but always with the main route identified, and at the Four-Level, both I-110 and Route 110 are given separate legend lines in signage off of US 101.

Which leads to I think why this happens: in these situations, excluding mention of these exits serves as an attempt at reduced message loading.

[NE2]

I feel that not signing auxiliary ramps actually is a statewide issue in urban areas.  in Sacramento, the ramp from I-5 south to X Street/Broadway is an auxiliary exit off of the ramp that carries Route 99 south from I-5 to US 50; only advanced signage for this exit is about 600 feet before the ramp splits!

Why should this be signed on I-5? X/Broadway is the next interchange on US 50, so it's logical that you can get there if you take the ramp to US 50 east. If the ramps were not braided, there would be no expectation by anyone of having special signage.

[TheStranger]

I feel that not signing auxiliary ramps actually is a statewide issue in urban areas.  in Sacramento, the ramp from I-5 south to X Street/Broadway is an auxiliary exit off of the ramp that carries Route 99 south from I-5 to US 50; only advanced signage for this exit is about 600 feet before the ramp splits!

Why should this be signed on I-5? X/Broadway is the next interchange on US 50, so it's logical that you can get there if you take the ramp to US 50 east. If the ramps were not braided, there would be no expectation by anyone of having special signage.

The ramp doesn't connect off US 50 at all, but from the I-5 southbound ramp - and the northbound exit for Broadway from I-5 is signed off the freeway itself.  (The next exit on US 50 once the southbound ramp has merged onto the mainline is for 15th Street/former Route 160)

[NE2]

The ramp doesn't connect off US 50 at all, but from the I-5 southbound ramp

Yes, but US 50 east has an exit to X (it's not signed as such, but that's a different problem). If the ramp from I-5 south to US 50 east were a tight loop that merged in before this exit, you wouldn't expect it to be signed on I-5 itself. So why should it be any different here?

Actually, given the separate Broadway exit northbound, I'd say Broadway should get an auxiliary sign southbound. But otherwise there's no reason, just as there's presumably no signage for Q Street on US 50 west.