California Observations

[ARMOURERERIC]

I read the recent California Highways update and it asppears the major money was approved for a large scale BGS replacement in San Diego.  All the signs on da 8 east are replaced after 2nd street in ElCajon, what annoys me it that out here they put up brand new signs that are word for word the same as the old ones, and hence do not meet current standards:  3 consecutive exits out here have as their next to last sign before exit: "exit 1/4 mile" then the next exit is "right lane" followed by "next right" on the exit after, no consistancy whatsoever.  My exit has a brand new auxilllary control sign of "Boulevard/Manzanita" even though niether were incorporated, Manzanita dissapeared around 1980 making the sign unneeded since the main exit signs all have Campo/Boulevard anyway.

[ARMOURERERIC]

Here is the specific verbage frm Californias highways:

In San Diego County, on I-5, I-8, I-15, Route 163 and I-805. Replace overhead and roadside signs at 53 locations to update access point information that has changed since relinquishment of two former routes; to upgrade sign panel materials for increased visibility and legibility; and to provide exit numbering information.

[TheStranger]

Here is the specific verbage frm Californias highways:

In San Diego County, on I-5, I-8, I-15, Route 163 and I-805. Replace overhead and roadside signs at 53 locations to update access point information that has changed since relinquishment of two former routes; to upgrade sign panel materials for increased visibility and legibility; and to provide exit numbering information.

The two routes being referenced are Route 209 and Route 274...no freeway signage for 209 anymore as of my two trips in San Diego in 2011, though I recall some street blade signs still containing a shield.

One side effect of this sign updating project: I don't think I've seen it in NorCal, a sign style with center-justified text, i.e.

"SOUTH

Rosecrans St

1/4 mile"

all centered, as opposed to, say...

"Watt Ave
South

1/4 mile"

[flowmotion]

Hmm, examples? 

US101 going south from San Francisco to San Jose has very few advanced BGSs for I-280, I-380, CA-92, CA-237, CA-87, I-880. There's a few here & there (perhaps more going North), but mostly the junctions don't get a dedicated sign until right before the exit. I-880 and other freeways similar.

[myosh_tino]

Hmmm...

Not sure what you're looking for in an advance guide sign but if you're looking for an advance guide sign with down arrows *and* a distance, forget about it.  Caltrans does not post such signs, in general.

I find the signs on 101 consistent with the way Caltrans handles advance guide signs.  The problem is, in urban areas, exits are pretty close together (1/2 mile or so apart) which I'll admit does limit how much advance warning drivers get but interchange sequence signs are plentiful so as long as you pay attention, you should have sufficient notice of intersecting highways.

[TheStranger]

Hmmm...

Not sure what you're looking for in an advance guide sign but if you're looking for an advance guide sign with down arrows *and* a distance, forget about it.  Caltrans does not post such signs, in general.

I find the signs on 101 consistent with the way Caltrans handles advance guide signs.  The problem is, in urban areas, exits are pretty close together (1/2 mile or so apart) which I'll admit does limit how much advance warning drivers get but interchange sequence signs are plentiful so as long as you pay attention, you should have sufficient notice of intersecting highways.

I think this ties in with something I brought up before (how some Bay Area VMSes refer to destinations, rather than specific interchanges, in their time calculations)...

If going on I-280 south, I recall you get signage for 17 AND 85 on a roadside sign approximately 4 or 5 miles in advance, independent of intermediate (minor) interchanges...why not do that more often for all major highway junctions?

So for instance, at the Cow Palace interchange on 101 north, you'd already get a roadside sign measuring the distance to the Alemany Maze (I-280) and the Central Freeway & Skyway (I-80) split...and then continue to have anticipatory signage to I-80 every few miles.

[Alps]

Here is the specific verbage frm Californias highways:

In San Diego County, on I-5, I-8, I-15, Route 163 and I-805. Replace overhead and roadside signs at 53 locations to update access point information that has changed since relinquishment of two former routes; to upgrade sign panel materials for increased visibility and legibility; and to provide exit numbering information.

The two routes being referenced are Route 209 and Route 274...no freeway signage for 209 anymore as of my two trips in San Diego in 2011, though I recall some street blade signs still containing a shield.

209 still has enough signage to get by.

[jrouse]

One side effect of this sign updating project: I don't think I've seen it in NorCal, a sign style with center-justified text, i.e.

"SOUTH

Rosecrans St

1/4 mile"

all centered, as opposed to, say...

"Watt Ave
South

1/4 mile"

I hate that type of thing.  There is no access to a northbound direction of Rosecrans.  It begins at the interchange.  Leaving the cardinal direction will only confuse people more.  When you remove the shield, take the cardinal direction down too!

[agentsteel53]

"SOUTH

Rosecrans St

1/4 mile"

that is a carbon-copy of the old "209 SOUTH - Rosecrans St - 1/4 mile" sign which had the 209 shield removed.

the worst example I can think of is 5 northbound at 52, which has a similar WEST for La Jolla Parkway, which was at one point 52 west.  now 52 (east only) and La Jolla Parkway (west only) start at 5. 

it gets extra confusing because there is a single exit-only lane to serve them both, and before the split, you get signs which say "La Jolla Parkway/52", leaving it ambiguous as to whether the two are two designations for the same stretch of road, or they refer to different stretches.  then, the exit-only lane splits in two, yielding "WEST La Jolla Parkway" to the right, and "52 EAST" to the left. 

so we have several separate problems of varying degrees of egregiousness:

1) given the existence of many, many named freeways in California, it is logical to expect that "52" and "La Jolla Parkway" refer to precisely the same length of road.  This is incorrect - at no point do they overlap, as one is on one side of 5 and one is on the other.

2) no control cities: 52 EAST does not, by name, go anywhere (Santee or El Cajon would be the correct control city).  La Jolla Parkway is implied to go to La Jolla - maybe?  It needs to be made explicit as well.  This absence of control cities just enhances point "1".

3) the floating WEST banner for La Jolla Parkway is definitely a mistake which needs to be patched out.  Here, we do not give banners to street names.  Certainly not all-caps ones.

4) a/b exits (where the exit-only lane splits in two before it has detached from the freeway) are sufficiently rare in California that they require much more precise signage.  The driver's instinct is to assume that the EXIT ONLY implies a single exit, consisting of a single ramp, and if one bears right to make the right-hand exit, he will be led towards his destination, which is "La Jolla Parkway - 52" - and later, when one has detached from I-5, he may make the decision on the correct direction of 52 he wishes to take.  This is not the case.  There are three gantries for this exit: the first two are "La Jolla Parkway - 52" and only the third - when the exit lane has just about completely split and correcting one's lane choice is getting dicey - mentions that "52" and "La Jolla Parkway" are, in fact, discrete entities going in opposite directions. 

5) another flaw in the exit design - the flyover lane.  The right fork of the ramp (WEST La Jolla Parkway) swings left.  Therefore, to make a correct, instinctive right curve to go from 5 northbound to 52 eastbound, one has to bear left-and-then-right.  This certainly needs to be signed in advance much more elaborately than a single sign at the split where the driver is suddenly shown a scrambled flyover maze.

yep, you can guess how many times I ended up on La Jolla Parkway, instead of 52, before I figured this one out.

[citrus]

(2) no control cities: 52 EAST does not, by name, go anywhere (Santee or El Cajon would be the correct control city).  La Jolla Parkway is implied to go to La Jolla - maybe?  It needs to be made explicit as well.  This absence of control cities just enhances point "1".

I've only seen 52-related control cities in one spot: 125 NB gives Santee for 52 EB, and....San Diego for 52 WB.

4) a/b exits (where the exit-only lane splits in two before it has detached from the freeway) are sufficiently rare in California that they require much more precise signage.  The driver's instinct is to assume that the EXIT ONLY implies a single exit, consisting of a single ramp, and if one bears right to make the right-hand exit, he will be led towards his destination, which is "La Jolla Parkway - 52" - and later, when one has detached from I-5, he may make the decision on the correct direction of 52 he wishes to take.  This is not the case.  There are three gantries for this exit: the first two are "La Jolla Parkway - 52" and only the third - when the exit lane has just about completely split and correcting one's lane choice is getting dicey - mentions that "52" and "La Jolla Parkway" are, in fact, discrete entities going in opposite directions. 

See also: 5 SB at Washington St and the airport exit. There's a nice BGS saying "Exit Only" for the airport, even though Washington St exits first. Actually, the airport exit is bad on its own, because it's marked as "San Diego Airport" on some signs, "Sassafras St" on at least one, and "Kettner Blvd" on yet a third version. All for the same exit! A friend was dropping me off one time and got angry at me for giving me bad directions... "so which one of those exits is it?"

[agentsteel53]

See also: 5 SB at Washington St and the airport exit. There's a nice BGS saying "Exit Only" for the airport, even though Washington St exits first.

there's something about Washington St.  163 southbound at Washington St is an a/b exit as well.  Yep, gotten lost there as well.

there's something very unintuitive about this style of exit design: when one sees "exit only", it reasonable to expect that by following the curve of the exit, he may access all of the destinations shown on the "exit only" sign - as opposed to having to make a decision while still on the freeway.

this is compounded, again, by the fact that there usually is just a single sign at the gore point to warn that things are not as they seem.

I wonder if there is a signage-only change that can alleviate this situation.

maybe take the "exit only" status of the lane away until the second exit?  sign the first exit as a standard exit, and then the second as "exit only".  I don't know if this allows traffic which wants to stay on the mainline enough time to leave the "exit only" lane.

one example which we could potentially use as a model is the non-exit-only a/b exit at Laval Road on I-5 southbound just north of the Grapevine.  that does not feature any lane drops, and therefore needs no "exit only" signage.  it is signed well in advance as having two separate exits - one for west, and then one for east, Laval Road.  

(that exit is horrible for other reasons, but they are not relevant to this discussion.)

[rschen7754]

so we have several separate problems of varying degrees of egregiousness:

2) no control cities: 52 EAST does not, by name, go anywhere (Santee or El Cajon would be the correct control city).  La Jolla Parkway is implied to go to La Jolla - maybe?  It needs to be made explicit as well.  This absence of control cities just enhances point "1".

Didn't it use to say "San Clemente Canyon"?

[jrouse]

Control cities are not very prevalent on a lot of the freeways in San Diego. 

[Desert Man]

Hey Brandon, you came to notice California's love of its roads and a high affinity for cars.  But the state dept. of transportation (CalTrans) are underfunded and in need of an overhaul. Roads may be fun, but they need regular maintainence or we let our infrastructure go into decline or despair. We need more funds to keep our roads in shape and repair (hey...it rhymes).  I still recall when the current I-15 freeway from Devore/I-215 to Temecula/I-215 was the "proposed 15-west" and at first was the "California State Route 31/71" meant to replace the older then-rural highways.

[Brandon]

Actually, Mike, California's love of roads and high affinity for cars isn't really any different than what you'd find in Michigan, particularly Metro Detroit.

[J N Winkler]

Here is the specific verbage frm Californias highways:

In San Diego County, on I-5, I-8, I-15, Route 163 and I-805. Replace overhead and roadside signs at 53 locations to update access point information that has changed since relinquishment of two former routes; to upgrade sign panel materials for increased visibility and legibility; and to provide exit numbering information.

This contract has now been advertised under contract number 11-291704 (link remains good for this contract until 9 AM next Monday):

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/weekly_ads/attach_a.php

(As an aside, $660,000 has been budgeted for this contract, which is hardly "major money" as signing contracts go.  Major money would be somewhere in the $2 million range.)  As TheStranger says, the relinquished routes are SR 209 and SR 274, and the contract calls just for SR 209 and SR 274 shields to be patched over (with "greenout") on existing guide signs.  Including approach road signage as well as guide signs on freeway mainlines, this contract has just 13 sign panel detail sheets.

[agentsteel53]

the contract calls just for SR 209 and SR 274 shields to be patched over (with "greenout") on existing guide signs. 

retroreflective greenout on old porcelain is fairly hideous... but it beats a full sign replacement.

[TheStranger]

the contract calls just for SR 209 and SR 274 shields to be patched over (with "greenout") on existing guide signs.

retroreflective greenout on old porcelain is fairly hideous... but it beats a full sign replacement.

One creative way CalTrans has done this in Norcal:

Route 84 used to go through downtown Livermore until about 4-5 years ago, when it was moved to the Isabel Avenue bypass.  On the signage on 580, the space where the 84 shield (on the original exit) originally sat has been replaced with...exit number square!

[myosh_tino]

One creative way CalTrans has done this in Norcal:

Route 84 used to go through downtown Livermore until about 4-5 years ago, when it was moved to the Isabel Avenue bypass.  On the signage on 580, the space where the 84 shield (on the original exit) originally sat has been replaced with...exit number square!

Heh, that's a pretty creative way of covering up a route shield and adding an exit number.  Here is one of the signs TheStranger is referring to...

First, the before picture...


Then the after picture...

[Quillz]

Would have been nicer if the colors matched, though. Seems newer sign installations are using a much brighter green than before. The MUTCD approximates it as Pantone value 342.

[myosh_tino]

Would have been nicer if the colors matched, though. Seems newer sign installations are using a much brighter green than before. The MUTCD approximates it as Pantone value 342.

In the signs I posted above, the color will *never* match.  Older California guide signs that use button-copy used a non-retroreflective sheeting.  All new signs will be the same color as the exit number overlay.

[jrouse]

This contract has now been advertised under contract number 11-291704 (link remains good for this contract until 9 AM next Monday):

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/weekly_ads/attach_a.php

(As an aside, $660,000 has been budgeted for this contract, which is hardly "major money" as signing contracts go.  Major money would be somewhere in the $2 million range.)  As TheStranger says, the relinquished routes are SR 209 and SR 274, and the contract calls just for SR 209 and SR 274 shields to be patched over (with "greenout") on existing guide signs.  Including approach road signage as well as guide signs on freeway mainlines, this contract has just 13 sign panel detail sheets.

In looking at these plans, I see where they called for preserving the cardinal direction of SOUTH on some of the signs for Rosecrans Street (former State Route 209).  The cardinal direction is being preserved because the I-5 route shield will remain.  On the subsequent sign that is just for the ramp to Rosecrans Street, there is no cardinal direction.  You might recall I complained about the practice of leaving the cardinal direction in an earlier post, but that clearly is not the case here.

[Brandon]

WTF was wrong with puting the exit tab on top of the sign?

[blawp]

WTF was wrong with puting the exit tab on top of the sign?

What's wrong with it the way it is?

[Alps]

WTF was wrong with puting the exit tab on top of the sign?

What's wrong with it the way it is?

It's called the MUTCd.