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Cities That Absolutely Suck at Signing State & US Highways

Started by ekt8750, August 27, 2017, 08:47:01 PM

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ekt8750

Quote from: PHLBOS on August 28, 2017, 01:05:55 PM
Quote from: jemacedo9 on August 28, 2017, 10:35:52 AMPA 3 is not very well marked either, even though most of it is a straight shot on Chestnut and Walnut Streets.
Despite PA 3 crossing I-76 near/adjacent to the 30th St. Station interchange (via JFK Blvd. (3 Eastbound) & Market St. (3 Westbound)); there's no PA 3 shields on the interchange signage... but there are Amtrak & SEPTA shields on the BGS'.

You have those backwards. 3 West is JFK and 3 East is Market St. Nonetheless the point still stands. I forget sometimes that 3 runs into the city. Hell I wasn't sure where the one way pairs transition from Chestnut & Walnut Sts to Market St till I looked at a map (turns out it's 38th St which means it has a 3 block concurrency with US 13).


plain

Richmond notoriously sucks at signing. I can post literally dozens of intersections where signage is wrong or missing but I'm gonna deal with this one

https://goo.gl/maps/eA3mRSqFurF2

For starters, the two US 60 unisigns are both facing the wrong direction (supposed to be facing 14th St as US 60 is on Main St, not 14th).

The unisign with US 60 and VA 147 on it is erroneous: the arrow for US 60 is pointing left when it's supposed to point straight ahead. Maybe it would've been better if it said US 60 TRUCK with the left arrow but I'm not sure if this is really where the truck route begins. Also, VA 147 doesn't begin here but several blocks ahead at 8th St instead. It would've been better if it said TO VA 147.

There's no signs for EB Main St here indicating that US 60/360 EB continues east on Main while US 360 WB follows 14th St south of the intersection.
Newark born, Richmond bred

WillWeaverRVA

Quote from: plain on August 28, 2017, 02:36:52 PM
Richmond notoriously sucks at signing. I can post literally dozens of intersections where signage is wrong or missing but I'm gonna deal with this one

https://goo.gl/maps/eA3mRSqFurF2

For starters, the two US 60 unisigns are both facing the wrong direction (supposed to be facing 14th St as US 60 is on Main St, not 14th).

The unisign with US 60 and VA 147 on it is erroneous: the arrow for US 60 is pointing left when it's supposed to point straight ahead. Maybe it would've been better if it said US 60 TRUCK with the left arrow but I'm not sure if this is really where the truck route begins. Also, VA 147 doesn't begin here but several blocks ahead at 8th St instead. It would've been better if it said TO VA 147.

There's no signs for EB Main St here indicating that US 60/360 EB continues east on Main while US 360 WB follows 14th St south of the intersection.

I could speak for days about the horrific quality of signage in Richmond. I've brought it up with them numerous times and they just don't think it's important.

One thing they do find important apparently is the removal of cutouts...a VA 6 cutout at the Richmond city limits near Three Chopt Road was recently removed and replaced with one of their ugly unisigns.
Will Weaver
WillWeaverRVA Photography | Twitter

"But how will the oxen know where to drown if we renumber the Oregon Trail?" - NE2

plain

Quote from: WillWeaverRVA on August 29, 2017, 11:38:33 AM
Quote from: plain on August 28, 2017, 02:36:52 PM
Richmond notoriously sucks at signing. I can post literally dozens of intersections where signage is wrong or missing but I'm gonna deal with this one

https://goo.gl/maps/eA3mRSqFurF2

For starters, the two US 60 unisigns are both facing the wrong direction (supposed to be facing 14th St as US 60 is on Main St, not 14th).

The unisign with US 60 and VA 147 on it is erroneous: the arrow for US 60 is pointing left when it's supposed to point straight ahead. Maybe it would've been better if it said US 60 TRUCK with the left arrow but I'm not sure if this is really where the truck route begins. Also, VA 147 doesn't begin here but several blocks ahead at 8th St instead. It would've been better if it said TO VA 147.

There's no signs for EB Main St here indicating that US 60/360 EB continues east on Main while US 360 WB follows 14th St south of the intersection.

I could speak for days about the horrific quality of signage in Richmond. I've brought it up with them numerous times and they just don't think it's important.

One thing they do find important apparently is the removal of cutouts...a VA 6 cutout at the Richmond city limits near Three Chopt Road was recently removed and replaced with one of their ugly unisigns.

Assuming you're talking about the one on the light pole WB just before Three Chopt then all I can say is damn... another one bites the dust. That was indeed the last cutout for VA 6 in the city. I wish I was there when it happened so I could try and get it after they removed it. For some reason I was hoping they left it up since they replaced all the cutouts on Patterson except that one, but then again they probably just overlooked it until now being that it was on that light pole.

The only other vintage signs I know of is a VA 147 cutout on Cary St just after Boulevard, and a sign on Saunders St SB just after Laburnum that's not a cutout but one of those mostly white unisigns and it's for VA 197
Newark born, Richmond bred

Roadgeek2500

PA 3 is also signed very poorly at it's other end in West Chester. It's quite hard to find where it begins and ends.

Quote from: NE2 on December 20, 2013 - DRPA =Derpa

dfnva

Quote from: WillWeaverRVA on August 29, 2017, 11:38:33 AM
Quote from: plain on August 28, 2017, 02:36:52 PM
Richmond notoriously sucks at signing. I can post literally dozens of intersections where signage is wrong or missing but I'm gonna deal with this one

https://goo.gl/maps/eA3mRSqFurF2

For starters, the two US 60 unisigns are both facing the wrong direction (supposed to be facing 14th St as US 60 is on Main St, not 14th).

The unisign with US 60 and VA 147 on it is erroneous: the arrow for US 60 is pointing left when it's supposed to point straight ahead. Maybe it would've been better if it said US 60 TRUCK with the left arrow but I'm not sure if this is really where the truck route begins. Also, VA 147 doesn't begin here but several blocks ahead at 8th St instead. It would've been better if it said TO VA 147.

There's no signs for EB Main St here indicating that US 60/360 EB continues east on Main while US 360 WB follows 14th St south of the intersection.

I could speak for days about the horrific quality of signage in Richmond. I've brought it up with them numerous times and they just don't think it's important.

One thing they do find important apparently is the removal of cutouts...a VA 6 cutout at the Richmond city limits near Three Chopt Road was recently removed and replaced with one of their ugly unisigns.

The worst city in Virginia for route signage is, hands down, Manassas Park. No postings whatsoever for the two state primary routes (VA 28 and VA 213) that go through the city.

SidS1045

Quote from: roadman on August 28, 2017, 12:03:34 PM
Quote from: paulthemapguy on August 28, 2017, 10:31:16 AM
Massachusetts is just generally Assachusetts in this regard
Massachusetts is inconsistent in this regard, as it depends on whether the road the route is on is state or local jurisdiction when it goes through a community (this is very inconsistent from town to town).  Some cities and towns acknowledge the importance of good route signing, while most others consider any and all signing to be a blight that detracts from the "streetscape", and will provide only minimal route signs at best.

...and then there was the contractor which, simply put, f**ked it up.  A few years ago, a large number of new shields with directional panels were erected in Boston, and most of them were wrong.  Don't know whether those were contracted by the city or the state, but the contractor had to make them right and probably took a loss on the whole thing.
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." - Edward R. Murrow

thenetwork

Someone can either confirm or deny that this is still an issue, but the last times I went through Cincinnati and Columbus on the surface streets (about 10-15 years ago), many route street changes were poorly/not marked in the downtown areas where most routes did make at least 1 or 2 turns due to one-way streets, so it was pretty easy to miss a turnoff. 

Cleveland was pretty bad in signing multiplexed routes coming in and out of downtown up until the mid-2000s when they finally updated and added signs where needed (also resulting in the removal of the last of the cut-out shields).   They still have issues with not recognizing most routes on BGS exit signs from the interstates in Downtown.  Yes, some of the exits can have 2 or 3 routes on a multiplex, but that doesn't excuse those exits with only one route running on them (I'm looking at you Chester & Superior Aves. -- unsigned US-322 and US-6, respectively). 


hbelkins

Cincinnati's worst failings are on US 27 and US 52 in the portion that runs along the riverfront in the vicinity of where Riverfront Stadium used to be, and where US 42 and US 127 cross the river into the state. Other than that, during my forays into downtown Cincy, I've found the routes to be marked fairly well.

Having said that, the only routes I've driven in their entirety are US 27, US 50, US 52 and US 127. I don't know how well US 22 and US 42 are signed.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

amroad17

I don't need a GPS.  I AM the GPS! (for family and friends)

1995hoo

Quote from: silverback1065 on August 28, 2017, 10:19:11 AM
Quote from: ekt8750 on August 27, 2017, 08:47:01 PM
I bring this up living just outside the poster child city for this thread, Philadelphia. With the exceptions of US 1 and PA 611 (both of which run on three of the most important roads in the city and in PA 611's case stays on the same straight road throughout), reassurance signs are practically non existent. Sure there might be a token runner on a street blade or two that's erected in the past couple years but heaven help you if the route turns off the road you're cause more than likely there won't be directional signage to guide you at that intersection.

I challenge anyone to try to fully traverse US 13 in though Philly from border to border without a map or gps and do so without deviation and see how far you can make it. Good luck with that.

Any other cities like this?

actually, DC is the king.  they have literally removed all signs for all us routes in the district.  i don't understand why either. 

That's an exaggeration. I regularly walk past a US-29 shield located on K Street on the east side of 14th at Farragut Square. There are various other US shields throughout the District, including a couple on BGSs. Then there is at least one that is misleading (a nicely-done US-29 unisign inexplicably located on New Hampshire Avenue just south of Dupont Circle).

But certainly if you planned to use signs as your only information to try to follow a US route through the city, you would be unsuccessful.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

jbnv

Haven't seen a city in Louisiana that fails to sign its routes but they don't really care that the signs look good.
🆕 Louisiana Highways on Twitter | Yes, I like Clearview. Deal with it. | Redos: US | La. | Route Challenge

roadman

Quote from: SidS1045 on September 01, 2017, 11:37:15 AM
Quote from: roadman on August 28, 2017, 12:03:34 PM
Quote from: paulthemapguy on August 28, 2017, 10:31:16 AM
Massachusetts is just generally Assachusetts in this regard
Massachusetts is inconsistent in this regard, as it depends on whether the road the route is on is state or local jurisdiction when it goes through a community (this is very inconsistent from town to town).  Some cities and towns acknowledge the importance of good route signing, while most others consider any and all signing to be a blight that detracts from the "streetscape", and will provide only minimal route signs at best.

...and then there was the contractor which, simply put, f**ked it up.  A few years ago, a large number of new shields with directional panels were erected in Boston, and most of them were wrong.  Don't know whether those were contracted by the city or the state, but the contractor had to make them right and probably took a loss on the whole thing.
That project was entirely City of Boston, and it was their designer who f**ked it up.  The story goes that, in laying out the sign plans, the designer had the directional orientation of the base plan 180 degrees opposite of what it was supposed to be.  They also created a non-existent extension of MA 2A from Commonwealth Avenue to Melina Cass Boulevard.  Somehow, nobody from the designer or the City noticed these errors before the signs were installed

As this was a City-funded project, MassDOT had no involvement in the project design or review.  However, District 6 stepped in to provide assistance to the City in correcting errors once the signs were installed.
"And ninety-five is the route you were on.  It was not the speed limit sign."  - Jim Croce (from Speedball Tucker)

"My life has been a tapestry
Of years of roads and highway signs" (with apologies to Carole King and Tom Rush)

cl94

New York City might take the cake in this part of the country. Good luck following the surface routes if you don't know what streets they run on. Turns are rarely signed and reassurance markers are lacking. The exception here is NY 9A, whose surface portion had a major reconstruction not too long ago and, as it was a NYSDOT project, signs went up everywhere. Several routes are not signed where they intersect other routes. While NY 22 ends at US 1 in the Bronx, I don't think there's a single NY 22 shield inside city limits.

Syracuse is easily the worst in Upstate New York. Excluding NY 5, it is impossible to follow any surface routes through the city because they generally are not signed.

Agree with Massachusetts being bad in cases of local maintenance (good luck getting through Holyoke or the Boston area).
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DandyDan

Omaha strikes me as inconsistent. The highways are signed, but if you come to an intersection where 2 highways meet, you wouldn't generally know it without looking at a map. Freeways are well-signed.
MORE FUN THAN HUMANLY THOUGHT POSSIBLE

hbelkins

I made a wrong turn in either downtown Scranton or Wilkes-Barre (can't remember which) because US 11 was so poorly signed.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.



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