The Clearview thread

[J N Winkler]

seriously, if Clearview is oh-so-legible, why don't they use it on stop signs?  (Don't get any ideas, anyone.)

Simple answer:  the MUTCD requires that signs be designed in accordance with Standard Highway Signs and there is already a SHS design for the STOP sign which does not use Clearview.  FHWA's interim approval to use Clearview in positive-contrast situations does not override the requirement to conform to SHS, which is the main reason Clearview is used only on so-called "designable" signs where the legend has to vary to suit sign location and purpose.  Most of these are guide signs and route marker signs (excluding tabs).

More complex answer:  for its effect the STOP sign depends primarily on shape and only secondarily on text legend.  The text legend is also overdesigned (only one word, and very tall relative to sign height) compared to guide signs in general.  Thus, even the most rabid Clearview advocates can't claim a practical benefit from scrapping existing STOP sign silkscreens.

The designers of Clearview have however tried to promote the use of Clearview Bold typefaces in positive-contrast situations, including conversion from all-uppercase to mixed-case legends on light-background warning and regulatory signs.  I am not aware that they have found any state DOTs or transportation research institutes willing to fund testing, however.  The impression I receive is that there is a growing backlash to Clearview as the high cost of switching over to it bites into shrinking state DOT construction budgets.

[hbelkins]

The designers of Clearview have however tried to promote the use of Clearview Bold typefaces in positive-contrast situations, including conversion from all-uppercase to mixed-case legends on light-background warning and regulatory signs.  I am not aware that they have found any state DOTs or transportation research institutes willing to fund testing, however.  The impression I receive is that there is a growing backlash to Clearview as the high cost of switching over to it bites into shrinking state DOT construction budgets.

If the states, or the contractors they employ to make signs, already have a font license for Clearview, why would it be more expensive than the standard "highway gothic" font?

Kentucky is using some black-on-white Clearview for some regulatory signs, specifically the "move over for stopped emergency vehicles" and "move damaged vehicles from the roadway" signs. Pennsylvania also uses black-on-yellow Clearview extensively for safe driving reminders. ("Buckle Up Next Million Miles")

[agentsteel53]

Pennsylvania also uses black-on-yellow Clearview extensively for safe driving reminders. ("Buckle Up Next Million Miles")

that plus the Comic Sans (or worse!) "My Reproducing Module Works Here" signs ... I want my taxpayer dollars back!

[agentsteel53]

The designers of Clearview have however tried to promote...

for every atrocity, a lobbyist.

welcome to America, 2009. 

[City]

Clearview adorning this westbound main line reassurance shield in Detroit.



2di-width Clearview fonted eastbound main line shield for Interstate 696.

That I-96 shield was ugly, but this thing... A 3di interstate number inside a 2di width shield, and in Clearview!? I'm going to have to invent a new word, or I can just say this:

[agentsteel53]

I actually really like the 24x24, 36x36, etc shields ... so if it did not have Clearview it would suit me fine.



now if only it had the state name...



ahh, there we go!  Classic specifications, as laid out in the 1957 signing manual.

[TheStranger]

agentsteel53: What's the exact font for the numbering for the 1957 state-name 3di shield?  I assume it got phased out due to being less readable than the "wide" shield but I really like the consistency of look that that offered alongside the 2di shields...

[agentsteel53]

agentsteel53: What's the exact font for the numbering for the 1957 state-name 3di shield?  I assume it got phased out due to being less readable than the "wide" shield but I really like the consistency of look that that offered alongside the 2di shields...

that font is standard Highway Gothic Series C. 

the wide shield was invented in 1962 by California because, indeed, for three-digit numbers, it was a bit less legible.  The feds put it into their 1972 specification, but before then, a lot of states were fairly slow to adopt it.  The Nebraska shield dates to about 1965.

[hbelkins]

Allow me to say that I hate the wide shields (24 x 30 and similar) for ALL applications -- state, US and interstate.

I much prefer this...



to this...

[agentsteel53]

yes, wide shields tend to suck quite hardcore, especially when the state gets a new outline (Arkansas for example).

[mightyace]

IMHO I don't like either I-495 sign, though the second one looks "less wrong" to me.  Now, if they'd only shrink it back to a normal size, it would be just perfect.

[agentsteel53]

here is a classic I-495 shield.  Can't beat this design.  (Durability leaves something to be desired... but the sign is from 1958!)

[jdb1234]

Alabama Updates:

I found another Clearview overhead BGS:

[J N Winkler]

If the states, or the contractors they employ to make signs, already have a font license for Clearview, why would it be more expensive than the standard "highway gothic" font?

The cost of licensing Clearview is something like $800 per workstation, so the licenses are not much more than a few bucketfuls in the oceans of consultant and contractor overhead.  The added cost of Clearview has more to do with how sign replacement is programmed.  Conversion to Clearview tends to be correlated with an approach of replacing all signs along a given length of road regardless of condition.  In Arizona, Michigan, and Texas, all of which are large-scale Clearview adopters, there have been examples of sign replacements being programmed on suspiciously short intervals soon after Clearview was adopted.

For instance, Arizona DOT wants to replace all the signs on I-19 using ARRA stimulus funds.  One motivation for this contract, other than Clearview conversion, is to replace metric units with English units, but this is something Tucson District announced it wanted to do back in 2004, and at that time it was said that the conversion back to English units would wait until the next routinely scheduled sign replacement.  It is now 2009 and the signs Arizona DOT wants to replace were all installed in 1999, so they are only 10 years old.  The signs that were installed in 1999 themselves replaced signs which were installed in 1981, and so were 18 years old.  The typical replacement interval for freeway guide signs in Arizona is between 15 and 25 years.

Ground zero for Clearview on ADOT infrastructure (Phoenix had already been using Clearview for street name signs for years) is the I-10 Poston-Hovatter signs job.  I haven't checked yet, but I think those signs were suspiciously young too (as in, installed in the mid-1990's; Poston-Hovatter was done in 2005).

Clearview is a completely new type system and its legibility advantages over the FHWA alphabet series are at a maximum when it is used in combination with advanced (and expensive) sheeting types like microprismatic sheeting.  In theory it is possible to replace signs on a piecemeal basis, through a program of auditing each individual sign for retroreflective performance, but it has proven to be very unattractive for Clearview adopters to do this--the "all or nothing" approach (which often entails premature replacement of perfectly good signs) is much more common.

My thinking is that the engineers responsible for programming sign replacements want consistency of provision at the corridor level, e.g. older signs with Series E Modified on super engineer grade or high-intensity sheeting, or brand-new signs with Clearview and microprismatic sheeting, rather than a wild melange of dark Series E Modified signs and bright Clearview signs.  The problem is that it costs money to maintain consistency when upgrading to Clearview (since you are in effect paying for the excess durability of the older Series E Modified signs) and so, from a budgetary point of view, it becomes attractive to leave the older signs out for a few more years until there is enough money to replace them all in one go.

From a risk management perspective, Clearview is not a slam dunk.  Any state DOT knows that if it continues to use Series E Modified, it is safe.  Clearview is covered by an interim approval, but that can be withdrawn if FHWA concludes that its advantages over Series E Modified are not worth continued regulatory endorsement.  If that happens, Clearview will have to be phased out on existing signing and the phasing-out costs will mirror those of phasing out Series E Modified in favor of Clearview.  Hence, you get lots of states like Kansas and California which have Clearview approvals on the books but are continuing to use Series E Modified for new signs.

Kentucky is using some black-on-white Clearview for some regulatory signs, specifically the "move over for stopped emergency vehicles" and "move damaged vehicles from the roadway" signs.

Some observations:

*  This practice is not covered by the current interim approval (which is for positive-contrast signing only).

*  If Kentucky is using all-uppercase on these signs, it is forfeiting the legibility advantage of Clearview, which is based on legend being rendered in mixed-case (Clearview has a higher loop height for the same height of uppercase legend compared to Series E Modified).

*  If Kentucky is using the Clearview W series rather than B series for these signs, that is another no-no from the standpoint both of legibility and aesthetics.

My heart sinks every time I see construction plans which call for W-series Clearview against light backgrounds.  I can only hope these designs are corrected before the signs are fabricated.

[agentsteel53]

I personally have not found a legibility advantage in Clearview - even correctly designed W-series on green backgrounds.

This comes from mainly Texas experience in various conditions (sunrise, sunset, fog, night, clear, etc). 

it is offset for me by the fact that the font is ugly as sin, and that perfectly good signs are being replaced, which is a colossal waste of money.

[J N Winkler]

I personally have not found a legibility advantage in Clearview - even correctly designed W-series on green backgrounds.

This comes from mainly Texas experience in various conditions (sunrise, sunset, fog, night, clear, etc).

I wouldn't expect you personally to observe a huge advantage in Clearview.

First, you are young, and Clearview has its highest legibility values relative to Series E Modified for older drivers.

Second, the advent of Clearview in Texas coincided with a move to using microprismatic rather than high-intensity sheeting on guide signs.  TxDOT started its massive changeover to retroreflective sheeting on guide signs in the late 1990's, and several huge Interstate sign replacements went forward with Series E Modified on high-intensity sheeting.  Clearview and microprismatic sheeting were then introduced more or less simultaneously in mid-2003.  There was a period of time when TxDOT was mixing the two type systems in its contract lettings, but it did not last long--it took just six months to go from nearly all Series E Modified to nearly all Clearview.  Therefore, there are very few Clearview signs in Texas with high-intensity sheeting, and very few Series E Modified signs with microprismatic sheeting.  This would have limited the ability to compare on an equal basis.  Again, the relative advantage of Clearview is more pronounced for more advanced sheeting types.  If you had seen Series E Modified and Clearview on the same sign with microprismatic sheeting, the Clearview might very well have stood out (even to young eyes) as less "blobby" from halation.

it is offset for me by the fact that the font is ugly as sin, and that perfectly good signs are being replaced, which is a colossal waste of money.

Any sign replacement program has to confront problems of excess durability, but overall I would not say the scale of waste is that great.  A major sign refurbishment contract (taking down and replacing every sign along, say, a 50-mile length of freeway) typically costs around $2 million.  These days, in a large state like Texas or Michigan, you might be lucky to see six of those in a year--in Arizona now it is more like two or three.  There are plenty of resurfacing and bridge replacement contracts which cost as much, or more.  A simple rural interchange contract would cost around $10-$20 million.  Urban service interchanges typically cost more, and it is rare to get a major rebuild of a system interchange for under $200 million.

There has been more apparent waste in Michigan than in Texas, because Clearview sign replacements in Texas have been more likely to affect old, dilapidated button copy signs.  But even so Clearview signing hasn't really held up substantial construction in Michigan.  That is more to do with MDOT's funding shortfalls ($350 million is the number I remember from the last time MDOT tried to scare the Michigan legislature into raising the gas tax, or otherwise tackling the funding situation).

About Clearview and its aesthetics, I am more or less neutral except where the numbers and shields are concerned.  I used to hate the idea of a national conversion to Clearview, not least because I resented the thoroughly unnecessary boost to the Clearview designers' ego that this would represent.  On the other hand, its claimed advantages have withstood independent testing by tachistoscope and in the field.  Except for the odd flukes here and there, the big Clearview users have been consistent about retaining the FHWA series for shield digits.  And in Texas the conversion to Clearview was also used as a platform for moving from 6" all-uppercase Series D to mixed-case Clearview (8" uppercase) on D-series guide signs without significantly expanding sign panel area.  This is beneficial for motorists like me who avoid rural Interstates and, as the price for peace and quiet, have had to put up with sign letter heights less than half those used on rural freeways.

Personally, I think Clearview is considerably more attractive than, say, the traffic typefaces used in Turkey and Poland.  Polish "Drogowskaz" oversells its utilitarian function by frantically avoiding any appearance of aesthetic regularity, while the kerning in the main Turkish traffic alphabet is so wide it unintentionally emphasizes the message--when you drive past a sign which says "1 0 0 0 0   N ü f ü s," you know you have been told the population is ten thousand.

[agentsteel53]

two million dollars here, two million dollars there - pretty soon we'll be talking about real money.  I for one have had only three instances of problems reading old button copy signs.  

1) in Texas, where the shields were entirely non-reflective.  That is not a button-copy problem, it is a problem that could be solved with button copy.  I have no idea why Texas changed sometime in the 70s from button copy shields to non-reflective shields on signs with button copy legend.

2) North Dakota.  Some combination of fog and cold weather results in the first few signs on I-29 coming in from SD being completely illegible at night in adverse weather.  The buttons no longer reflect (likely because they are fogged or iced over), and instead random protuberances on the letter and sign - bolts, edges, etc, do catch occasional glint.  I have no idea what they did so wrong.

3) Connecticut using button copy on a retroreflective background with outline shields.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  

I've had similar quantities of trouble reading retroreflective white on retroreflective green, especially in situations of frost where both foreground and background ice over in patches, yielding some very inconsistent reflectivity.

so, given that the other 47 states are fine (yes, even California porcelain; it just needs to be washed every so often), this idea of sign replacement every 2-3 years just as a matter of policy strikes me as complete and utter waste.  

And yes, I know they do not make button copy anymore.  If an old sign falls down, replace it with retroreflective white on non-reflective green, which to me is the best color scheme.  Or even microprismatic HI on engineer grade green.  I can read button copy on non-reflective much better than retroreflective on retroreflective, and in the very very few instances where I have seen retroreflective white on non-reflective green (Virginia, Montana, Kansas, etc), it has been similar in legibility to button copy, except slightly improved because the letters were not individual dots, but solid forms.

I don't mind Poland's type.  The ugliest typeface has to be Helvetica, which has absolutely no business being used on highway signs.  Or "Daddy Grotesk", whatever that type is for "Slow Down, my Daddy Works Here" which makes Comic Sans look like a serious effort.

"1 0 0 0 0   N ü f ü s,"

and a few old soreheads.

[J N Winkler]

I've had similar quantities of trouble reading retroreflective white on retroreflective green, especially in situations of frost where both foreground and background ice over in patches, yielding some very inconsistent reflectivity.

That is actually due to condensation on the sign surface and I think it is a problem of retroreflective materials in general.  I am personally not convinced button copy is free from this particular problem.

And yes, I know they do not make button copy anymore.  If an old sign falls down, replace it with retroreflective white on non-reflective green, which to me is the best color scheme.

That has been out of court for quite a while (MUTCD requires retroreflectorization or illumination to maintain similar appearance by night as by day).  Plus, the MUTCD now has a retroreflectivity provision which requires signs to be replaced when their retroreflectivity is not up to scratch.  This includes signs which look perfectly good by day but which, for one reason or another (e.g. bruised sheeting), just don't work at night.

Or even microprismatic HI on engineer grade green.

High-intensity sheeting is dirt-cheap now, so that is what Arizona DOT uses with white microprismatic sheeting for legend etc.

I can read button copy on non-reflective much better than retroreflective on retroreflective, and in the very very few instances where I have seen retroreflective white on non-reflective green (Virginia, Montana, Kansas, etc), it has been similar in legibility to button copy, except slightly improved because the letters were not individual dots, but solid forms.

Where did you see nonreflective green in Kansas?  I thought we got rid of the last of that ages ago.

[jdb1234]

More Clearview from Birmingham:





I'm not sure what font these shields are in:



And for your viewing pleasure:

[Scott5114]

Negative 1st Avenue. Awesome.

[codyg1985]

^^ Looks like ALDOT is replacing all older button-copy signage with the Clearview signs along US 31/Red Mountain Expressway.

ALDOT has also put up gas/food/lodging signs up along US 78/Future I-22 around Jasper that use clearview.

[Duke87]

There's ongoing construction on the Bronx River Parkway in southern Westchester County.

The County DPW is showing its absolute brilliance with the new signs:


Not only are they using Clearview, but they're borrowing NYSDOT's "box the street name" technique. Double fail!

[City]

Negative 1st Avenue. Awesome.

Where is it? I don't see a -1st Street on any of these pictures.

[roadfro]

Negative 1st Avenue. Awesome.

Where is it? I don't see a -1st Street on any of these pictures.

He's referring to the "US 78 / 3rd-4th Ave S" exit direction sign in the last photo, interpreting the dash as a minus sign.

[Riverside Frwy]

To be honest, the lettering of Clearview I actually kind of like, its mostly the numbers that are so hideous that even makes a blind person's eyes bleed.