Unique, Odd, or Interesting Signs aka The good, the bad, and the ugly

[tolbs17]

For SCDOT along I-95 the yellow black warning signs of the pier locations, is odd. Usually the piers are painted black and white instead.

Well North Carolina uses black and yellow so it isn't no different

[Big John]

For SCDOT along I-95 the yellow black warning signs of the pier locations, is odd. Usually the piers are painted black and white instead.

Those markers are usually used when there is a narrowing of the road or shoulder.

[BuildTheRussian]

"Right turn on red after stop" signs at a regular traffic light intersection.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2874438,-95.5824595,3a,37.5y,292.71h,109.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLT05_Gt-RxxPTZIgTgEeeA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[Big John]

^^ That sign is rather small for that message.

[roadfro]

For SCDOT along I-95 the yellow black warning signs of the pier locations, is odd. Usually the piers are painted black and white instead.

Those markers are usually used when there is a narrowing of the road or shoulder.

Those object markers are meant to be used when there is a hazard or obstruction in or adjacent to the roadway (not sure that narrowing of road/shoulder qualifies without an accompanying obstruction). But marking of bridge piers is one specific use case mentioned in the MUTCD, and the manual also mentions it is permissible to paint bridge piers in a pattern similar to these Type 3 markers.

[Mapmikey]

For SCDOT along I-95 the yellow black warning signs of the pier locations, is odd. Usually the piers are painted black and white instead.

Up until the early 1980s or thereabouts, the bridge piers in SC were painted black and white.

Faint remnants still exist of this:
https://goo.gl/maps/4umifS6je9zofBd88

Here's one on I-95 still that way:  https://goo.gl/maps/wrjkUtAoQ8URK98u9

When they changed to yellow and black, they were still putting them on the piers.  Here is an example, photo by Bill Manning, courtesy Gribblenation:
http://www.gribblenation.com/scroads/photos/i95n-exit160b-manning.jpg

[BuildTheRussian]

Interesting. We still paint hazards next to or in the middle of the road black and white here in Russia. Sometimes even the curb or crash barrier is painted black and white.

[tolbs17]

https://goo.gl/maps/dvdyuH64ay1sC8Vu9

That "SELMA" is so tiny and you can barely read it. I wonder which engineer even decided to put a tiny ass sign on that big one! Other than that, this is an old sign.

Crazy, Imo. Practically unreadable.

This is how it should be done.

[PurdueBill]

For SCDOT along I-95 the yellow black warning signs of the pier locations, is odd. Usually the piers are painted black and white instead.

Up until the early 1980s or thereabouts, the bridge piers in SC were painted black and white.

Faint remnants still exist of this:
https://goo.gl/maps/4umifS6je9zofBd88

Here's one on I-95 still that way:  https://goo.gl/maps/wrjkUtAoQ8URK98u9

When they changed to yellow and black, they were still putting them on the piers.  Here is an example, photo by Bill Manning, courtesy Gribblenation:
http://www.gribblenation.com/scroads/photos/i95n-exit160b-manning.jpg

Mass used very tall (for their width) skinny black-and-white markers at bridge piers for years but stopped by the 80s as I recall, using more conventional yellow-and-black markers.  Maybe they lasted later, but it seemed like the 80s
MA 62 at US 1 had an example in each direction less than 10 years ago but they are now gone.
https://goo.gl/maps/FiPzmdp6Y4EL7Zr17
https://goo.gl/maps/pJG7d1BkEhdtxMtY6

Some do still remain, though, like these in Lynnfield going under 128:
https://goo.gl/maps/FRteEHiNrCMVGR4d9
https://goo.gl/maps/67Eegj9ABHk5qz6n7

And others around too.  https://goo.gl/maps/Pagx97ZsXSnvEn4cA
https://goo.gl/maps/6vRvTSQ6et3trEYS9
https://goo.gl/maps/SZYgJ74zZfYyymp98

[ethanhopkin14]

Not ugly or strictly unique, but more rare if you know anything about how Texas signs it's Farm-to-Market roads on BGS.  There are a few out there like this. 

[formulanone]

Not ugly or strictly unique, but more rare if you know anything about how Texas sign's is Farm-to-Market roads on BGS.  There are a few out there like this. 

I've seen a few like that, but they're rare.

[J N Winkler]

Not ugly or strictly unique, but more rare if you know anything about how Texas signs its Farm-to-Market roads on BGS.  There are a few out there like this.

I've seen a few like that, but they're rare.

Enjoy them while they last--they were part of an Atlanta District experiment in the mid-noughties and most of them are reaching replacement age.

[thefraze_1020]

Google finally caught up to this mess:

Oversized mixed case, no horizontal tab bar on the left sign.

Once again, yet another example of WSDOT's unnecessary sign replacements. There was nothing wrong with the old signs. They could have simply added a new sign for the "B" exit in the middle of the gantry. And a new sign with a horizontal tab bar.

[CoreySamson]

Not ugly or strictly unique, but more rare if you know anything about how Texas signs its Farm-to-Market roads on BGS.  There are a few out there like this.

I've seen a few like that, but they're rare.

Enjoy them while they last--they were part of an Atlanta District experiment in the mid-noughties and most of them are reaching replacement age.

Your mention of the Atlanta district as well as my prior experience in other TxDOT districts has me wondering something. In Texas, it seems each district has its own quirks (such as Houston District's fetish with putting object markers on sign posts and this quirk with Atlanta District), but unless I'm missing something, it seems other states are generally pretty consistent district-to-district. I know Illinois's districts tend to vary in terms of freeway signage, but I'm not aware of other states with inconsistencies between districts. Is this just a Texas and Illinois thing, or am I mistaken?

[ErmineNotyours]

Google finally caught up to this mess:

Oversized mixed case, no horizontal tab bar on the left sign.

Once again, yet another example of WSDOT's unnecessary sign replacements. There was nothing wrong with the old signs. They could have simply added a new sign for the "B" exit in the middle of the gantry. And a new sign with a horizontal tab bar.

They did have to put up a new sign for 37B, a new exit ramp.

[Scott5114]

Not ugly or strictly unique, but more rare if you know anything about how Texas signs its Farm-to-Market roads on BGS.  There are a few out there like this.

I've seen a few like that, but they're rare.

Enjoy them while they last--they were part of an Atlanta District experiment in the mid-noughties and most of them are reaching replacement age.

Your mention of the Atlanta district as well as my prior experience in other TxDOT districts has me wondering something. In Texas, it seems each district has its own quirks (such as Houston District's fetish with putting object markers on sign posts and this quirk with Atlanta District), but unless I'm missing something, it seems other states are generally pretty consistent district-to-district. I know Illinois's districts tend to vary in terms of freeway signage, but I'm not aware of other states with inconsistencies between districts. Is this just a Texas and Illinois thing, or am I mistaken?

Oklahoma DOT's divisions do have their quirks (Division 7's use of year stickers is the main example that jumps out in my mind), but the organization as a whole is so inconsistent that it's hard to tell whether any given deviation from the norm is a district thing or the result of the signage engineer having horfed down an edible on the way into work. Due to the lack of contractor QA, many of the things that would appear to be divisional variance are actually contractor variance, and only appear to be regional because the contractor only bids on projects in a given region.

New York is usually the canonical example given for region-based variance.

[J N Winkler]

Your mention of the Atlanta district as well as my prior experience in other TxDOT districts has me wondering something. In Texas, it seems each district has its own quirks (such as Houston District's fetish with putting object markers on sign posts and this quirk with Atlanta District), but unless I'm missing something, it seems other states are generally pretty consistent district-to-district. I know Illinois's districts tend to vary in terms of freeway signage, but I'm not aware of other states with inconsistencies between districts. Is this just a Texas and Illinois thing, or am I mistaken?

There are plenty of other states with this type of variation.  Scott5411 has already mentioned New York, and California is another example.

In terms of signing, much of it has to do with whether signing plans are developed at the district level or at DOT HQ.  The DOTs in smaller and less populous states tend to follow the latter model, while TxDOT, Illinois DOT, NYSDOT, and Caltrans all delegate it to the districts, with varying degrees of supervision and control from HQ.  Sometimes districts are also allowed to develop their own engineering standards.  Caltrans District 6 (covering Bakersfield) had its own standard plan sheets for the federal-standard gore sign (other Caltrans districts used a smaller design specific to California), TxDOT's Houston District had its own sheets for arrow-block diagrammatics (I suspect they've now been cancelled since it has been at least 10 years since I last saw them), and Illinois DOT District 1 (covering Chicago) has its own signing and marking manual.

[hbelkins]

The easiest way to tell if you have crossed a highway district boundary in Kentucky is by looking at the signage.

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/DKEjaekWjwsCvPpz7

This intersection has tons of interesting signs.

[Tom958]

These appeared within the last couple of weeks as the new interchange at GA 316 and Harbins Road replaced the former traffic signal there. Apologies for the poor quality, but we were facing directly into the sun and it took every bit of photo-editing power my Galaxy S10 could muster to make them this clear. It also dramatizes the fact that there are visibility issues in addition to the comprehension issues I'm about to discuss.

This sign is at the beginning of an auxiliary lane added to develop the capacity of the two-lane, two-destination offramp ahead. There's an MUTCD-compliant way to sign this condition-- as it happens, it was used a few miles up the road a couple of years ago. Nobody really likes it, though, and GDOT usually does something else, such as this or even this.

Here, though, GDOT decided to go with an MUTCD-defiant unisign, a concept that, as I understand it, proved inferior to APL's in whatever testing was done, which is why APLs are in the MUTCD and unisigns like this aren't. The divider line, rather than being placed directly above the center arrow to indicate an option lane, is located to the left of said arrow, indicating, incorrectly, that two lanes go to the offramp and only one continues on the mainline. Really, it would've been more accurate to use a conventional (MUTCD-defiant) sign like this with an arrowless pullthrough. I guess that they did it this way because they really, really wanted to inform drivers that the offramp splits later on, causing the Sugarloaf Parkway text to displace the dividing line from its proper location. Ironically and infuriatingly, the Sugarloaf Parkway branch of the offramp is closed, with Sugarloaf traffic using a temporary offramp in the vicinity of the bridge we see in the distance. 



Next comes an APL at the exit divergence. Again, the Sugarloaf Parkway text displaces the divider line to the left of its correct location. Note to designers: The dividing line on an APL ALWAYS goes in the crotch of the split arrow. Here, IMO, they would've done better to omit it altogether. Or, better, they could've gone with

Sugarloaf Parkway
Harbins Road

and not had a problem.

Also, as I mentioned before, the Sugarloaf Parkway branch of the offramp isn't open, and drivers bound there need to stay on the mainline until the vicinity of the bridge. They should've blacked out the curved part of the split arrow, not the straight part. WTF were they thinking?

But, wait: there's more: There's no reason to encourage drivers to use both lanes of the ramp because the ramp enters a tortuous one-lane detour shortly after the not-yet-operational split. Wow.



One more thing, and this is design rather than signage: They really shouldn't have combined Sugarloaf and Harbins onto a single offramp. As you can see, it needlessly complicates signage and operations. Besides, they're separate exits in the other direction anyway.

One more one more thing: Sugarloaf Parkway, a Gwinnett County project completed almost ten years ago, also uses unisigns, and for no apparent reason. Perhaps they had a hand in this mess.

[roadman65]

This one seems to be a feature that SC practices. Painting the bridge pier columns with striped warning paint.




Here is  another one interesting concept. Use two arrows for three separate points.

[tolbs17]

A sign can look odd when a former route was on this.

US-311 was greened out when it was truncated.

https://goo.gl/maps/uG4GUNFzGXiPLWwv7

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/takyh7dW554xs6wQ8

I like the E-W lettering next to the long arrow on the directional guide for So. Orange Ave. 
This type of sign assembly was common in Essex County, NJ when I grew up nearby in Union County.

[tolbs17]

https://goo.gl/maps/takyh7dW554xs6wQ8

I like the E-W lettering next to the long arrow on the directional guide for So. Orange Ave. 
This type of sign assembly was common in Essex County, NJ when I grew up nearby in Union County.

I've been in that area before, yeah, it's neat of how all of those are common in New Jersey.

[CoreySamson]

This is pretty ugly IMO...


Seen on US 79 in Round Rock, TX:
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.5245619,-97.6336539,3a,15y,275.62h,89.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sihM76agZkLgcMALbiXkyEA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

It would probably be fine if not for the inexplicably capitalized "SIGNAL".