On another note, it's just "MOT" or "MOTI". The "MOTH" name was used up until 2001, when it was changed to "MOT", before being changed again in 2008 to "MOTI".
I've now taken notice of this. I've been writing "MOTH" for years because the agency website was at
www.th.gov.bc.ca for years, even while the "H" was dropped.
- I'm not sure what you mean by "inadequate space padding" in this context.
Ideally, there would be more yellow space top and bottom, closer (if not necessarily equal) to the yellow space provided at the sides, to allow the words to be picked out more easily.
I'm not trying to defend the MOT, but most of your issues are rooted in standards, not some perceived inadequacy on the part of the sign manufacturer. So, if you don't like the above sign, definitely don't come to BC.
Yes, my disagreement is really with the standards. I've been to BC multiple times, though not since 2003, and frankly I've never really come for the signs--unlike a lot of road enthusiasts, I never particularly liked the BC Font, which was being phased out on the more recent visits.
If it helps, here's the initial document that discusses the implementation of Clearview (dated 5th September 2006): https://goo.gl/SNw8it. Why exactly BC decided to adopt Clearview for almost all uses (there are still some situations where the FHWA Series is used), I'm not totally sure. It could be that their initial implementation of Highway Gothic came without updating previous sheeting standards, so when Clearview was implemented, they decided to just go all in and adopt Clearview everywhere, and work with that as a starting point.
My understanding is that, until a point in the late 1990's/early noughties, all traffic signs on MOT infrastructure were manufactured in the Ministry sign shop in Kamloops and were ordered using a periodically updated catalogue that was published in print and is now online. The BC Font was custom-made for the MOT and only the sign shop had the correct letter dies and silkscreens. Then the decision was taken to open up the Ministry's signing program to the private sector; I don't know if the MOT ever went so far as to advertise and award pure signing contracts, but they did jettison the BC Font for most applications (though I spotted BC Font stop signs with fresh sheeting as late as 2003) in favor of standardized typefaces like the FHWA alphabet series. I believe it was around this time that the first Dutch-inspired guide signs started appearing, initially in Series E Modified.
As part of the signing privatization, the MOT started publishing a Sign Pattern Manual online. Initially the graphics were vectors and could simply be extracted directly using Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator. But after a few years the MOT appeared to have second thoughts about the privatization and rolled it back. Around the same time, the Sign Pattern Manual graphics began to be rasterized prior to packing in PDFs, so that all one can now extract directly from the PDFs of recent editions is a resolution-limited bitmap. The Sign Pattern Manual has since been merged into the Sign Catalogue, which is still published under that title and now has sign patterns (one sign per page) following the catalogue pages (multiple signs per page) for each chapter.
As a person who collects sign layouts, sign panel detail sheets, and sign elevations from construction plans sets, I have found BC MOT to be generally a disappointment in terms of material one can collect. Most of the standards documents are online and can be downloaded, with older versions available through the Web Archive. However, like many other Canadian provincial transportation ministries, BC MOT requires a paying subscription to download actual tender documentation for highway projects (C$100 annually for BC Bid in their case). Many years ago I was able to take advantage of a fee holiday to download documentation for some projects, and found signing to be very sparse. It is my belief that the MOT tries to do as little signing as possible in turnkey construction contracts, reserving sign fabrication and erection to Ministry staff connected with the sign shop. I also suspect, though I never got hold of any relevant documentation, that the sign shop privatization took the form of an indefinite-quantity term contract, where a contractor supplied workers and materials to the shop and then undertook to fabricate (and, possibly, install) finished signs in response to work orders issued by Ministry staff.
I'm sure we can all agree that negative-contrast Clearview is still reasonably easy to read, right? It's not like they're using Comic Sans.
Yup. I would fight use of the Clearview B series if that were proposed by an US agency, in light of there being better alternatives such as the FHWA alphabet series, but as long as BC MOT takes the inferior legibility performance into account in fixing letter height and so on, I can't really object on functional grounds.