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Best/Worst Signage by State

Started by DrZoidberg, February 01, 2009, 02:01:46 AM

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DrZoidberg

I have been in 41 states, and this is what I've seen.

I nominate my current home of Oregon as the state with the worst signing.

1) Multiplexes are very poorly signed.

2) Very little use of reassurance shields, especially on state highways.

3) "TO" isn't used when giving directions to a highway.  For example, I-405 in Portland doesn't say "TO" US 26, it merely says 405/26, even though it doesn't actually meet with US 26 until after its junction with I-5. (US 26's routing through Portland is confusing to begin with)

4) Approaching a state highway from an arterial street seldom uses a JCT sign.  For example, and street approaching Scholls Ferry Rd (OR 210) isn't signed with a "JCT 210" sign.

As for the best state,I say Wisconsin.  Maybe it's bias since I grew up there but...

1) Multiplexes are signed incredibly well.  A prime example is I-94/US41 between the IL state line and Milwaukee.  The multiplex is signed on the mainlanes, frontage road signs, junction signs, and BGS displays.

2) They sign their TRIplex of 39/90/94 very well.

3) Certain counties sign mileposts every tenth of a mile.

4) JCT signs are always well displayed.

Thoughts?  Your opinions?

"By the way...I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar."


corco

#1
I agree with you on Oregon being awful awful awful. Doesn't US-26 join I-405 from exit 2A to I-5 though?
Oregon reassurance shields show up in really random places. They'll pop up on bridge posts not anywhere near another road, but then you'll get to a major arterial and there won't be any signage.

I'm partial to Idaho's signage. It's very consistent and concurrencies are well signed. The only gripe you could possibly have about it is that Big Green Signs rarely list US routes running concurrent with the Interstates, but the US Routes are well signed on reassurance shields.

From what I have seen in Nebraska I have been very impressed there too. The junction signage is particularly cool.

Bryant5493

Georgia has poor signage in places, such as when lanes end. Sometimes, lanes just end without any warning. That's just maddening.


Be well,

Bryant
Check out my YouTube page (http://youtube.com/Bryant5493). I have numerous road videos of Metro Atlanta and other areas in the Southeast.

I just signed up on photobucket -- here's my page (http://s594.photobucket.com/albums/tt24/Bryant5493).

Chris

From what I've seen on pictures, California seems to have very OLD signage. Not necessarily the worst though.

ComputerGuy

WA has good signage...we try to update our signs as soon as possible. So far, no flaws except the US 99 sign in Seattle...which we purposley set there.

corco

When Washington signs things totally up to their standards they are awesome, but there's too many holes in signage where they break from that. Signage is quite poor along Seattle-area arterials and concurrencies aren't very well signed either.

ComputerGuy

WSDOT is considering making some new state route signs soon...replace the green ones and with that they will make those Seattle area signs better.

corco

The green signs themselves aren't the problem; it's the lack of signage in places where signs need to be. Following the path of State Route 900 through Renton, for example, is incredibly difficult. What I've seen in previous WSDOT sign replacement is that they don't add new signs, just put new ones up where the old ones are.

John

California does have very old signage, but it will soon have the newest signage in the nation thanks to the CAL NEXUS program.
They came, they went, they took my image...

vdeane

In NY region 2's signage is pretty bad.  They use "TO" on nearly every guide panel and box all the street names, making it impossible to read them.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

Voyager

California definitely has the best...

I'd say Virginia is one of the worst.
Back From The Dead | AARoads Forum Original

Urban Prairie Schooner

My big pet peeve, besides the fact that Louisiana does a poor job of marking many of its routes (especially minor SRs), is that there is no distinction in signage between "primary" and "secondary" state highways. And yes, some Louisiana state highways are distinctly primary and others are distinctly secondary, though to be certain they aren't defined exactly that way in a legal sense anymore.

If you believed the signage, all state highways in La. are "primary." Big mistake. No way that, for example, LA 971 is of the same level of importance as, say, LA 67 or LA 10.

The new monochrome SR signage is ironic to me, because in the past I considered that perhaps a B&W state highway shield would be useful for signing the minor state routes, reserving the old green and white shields for primary routes only, thereby creating a needed distinction in signage.

Of course, my optimal solution would be to remove the vast majority of the minor routes from the state highway system altogether. But regrettably as I have come to learn over time, the mechanics of transportation politics in Louisiana are such that such a course of action would be complicated and essentially untenable. That's what happens when local "good old boy" types with their perpetual subsidy mentalities run the show, as they so often do here...

Alex

Arkansas gets a nod for worst because of having a policy of not signing overlapped routes. Instead the routes appear to be segmented.

Voyager

I thought that Arkansas just had the worst quality of highways.
Back From The Dead | AARoads Forum Original

corco

Arkansas is terrible, but the same also applies to Utah and their refusal to sign concurrencies (*cough*US 189) . It's not nearly as broken up as Arkansas, though

corco

The routes in Arkansas don't just appear to be segmented; they are segmented. Attempting to follow Arkansas 162 for example (There are better examples, my knowledge of the Arkansas highway system isn't that great and their state map sucks and I don't feel like looking more carefully), yields an incredibly strange concurrency

Utah does this too to a lesser extent.

Revive 755

Quote from: corco on February 01, 2009, 02:44:13 AM
From what I have seen in Nebraska I have been very impressed there too. The junction signage is particularly cool.

I had a nice long reply with many examples from streetview, but a computer just decided to eat it.  But anyway, I would not say that Nebraska's signage is the best because:

1) Subpar signage of Interstate/US route multiplexes (NB US 77 approaching its multiplex with I-80:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.810529,-96.753373&spn=0,359.956055&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.810429,-96.753326&panoid=uRR8AtQb-j76lQLq8sUJXQ&cbp=12,323.8830815678229,,0,-13.290129118996695
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.81329,-96.754789&spn=0,359.956055&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.813198,-96.754752&panoid=xrMWFom8STJkhxoHee813Q&cbp=12,346.76955623068187,,0,10.400794308570907http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.814134,-96.75509&spn=0,359.956055&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.813977,-96.755026&panoid=zJcVY1jltx2vv70Oz20-vg&cbp=12,340.7745167839722,,0,-12.212073779895393
2) Not always signing the link routes right
(example from US 77:  http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.741144,-96.717281&spn=0,359.824219&z=13&layer=c&cbll=40.741266,-96.71721&panoid=ooYEny6h5vdT3zXS1QZ29g&cbp=12,2.5222385935916805,,0,-43.27584396560947; there should at least be a "TO" banner on that sign, beside mention of L55X).  There are a few other examples along US 30 where it parallels I-80.
3) Poor "TO NE 2" signage on US 77 south of the SPUI with NE 2 (instead of a direct route via the next intersection, they go down to L55W, then back north up L55W to NE 2)
4) Lack of use of control cities on I-680 and I-480
6) Poor distance signage on I-80.  May be personal opinion, but I prefer Illinois way (next exit/next medium sized city, most likely with another interstate/control city).  Cheyenne ought to appear sooner than on a sign with Denver somewhere after Gothenburg.
7) Lousy mileposts on I-80 west of Lincoln (they can do better than four small green squares with numbers bolted to a post)

That said, I like the junction signage, the occasional use of left/right turn lane signs, and the use of shields for routes on distance signs.

I haven't been in enough states recently to say which is the best for signage.  However, I can say some of the states that I don't think are the best:  Illinois (poor signage of Interstate/US/State Route multiplexes, see I-55/I-70/US 40 or I-255/US 50 or I-255/US 50/IL 3 where IL 3 is missing from some assemblies); Indiana (the multiplexed routes disappearing along I-465), Missouri (distance signage like Nebraska, disappearing routes around downtown Kansas City), Iowa (need better control city use or signs for St. Paul and Des Moines on the Avenue of the Saints and the Burlington Des Moines corridors respectively), or Pennsylvania (end speed limit xx, yet not marking what it changes to, Baltimore should pop up on distance signs for I-70 after Washington, PA).

corco

#17
Very interesting- I haven't spent much time recently in eastern Nebraska- mainly on 20/26/I-80/I-76/N-92 in Western Nebraska where it has appeared to be of high quality.  I do agree on the mileposts being bad however. Wyoming uses those wood post things on secondary roads but full MUTCD mile markers on the mainline which is better.

Now that you  mention it though I have noticed some instances where the link is signed as the main route, especially with US-30 on the mainline but also with US-26 and N-92 at L-79E in Melbeta:



Language -DTP

SSOWorld

MN has a nack for not signing US routes paralleled with Interstates.

US 12 is only mentioned at the start of I-94 at the WI border and in Minneapolis (at I-394 where it turns on to the west) and at I-494.

The same goes for US 52 - You don't know it's there ever once you get onto I-94. - even into North Dakota :crazy:

On the other hand - In Wisconsin - If it weren't for I-39 taking out part of WIS-78 - It would have been co-signed with at least one US or Interstate route throughout its length, in both WI and IL.
Scott O.

Not all who wander are lost...
Ah, the open skies, wind at my back, warm sun on my... wait, where the hell am I?!
As a matter of fact, I do own the road.
Raise your what?

Wisconsin - out-multiplexing your state since 1918.

DrZoidberg

Is I-39's "solo stretch" near Portgage still signed as I-39 TO 51? Poor 39 can't get no respect....no respect at all, I tell ya!

"By the way...I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar."

SSOWorld

Quote from: DrZoidberg on February 02, 2009, 12:00:42 PM
Is I-39's "solo stretch" near Portgage still signed as I-39 TO 51? Poor 39 can't get no respect....no respect at all, I tell ya!


Only the first reassurance set after the interchange.  The ones after the next two exits after that are actual solo I-39 shields - one of the five has black background might I add.

This was after the road was rebuilt.  The signs had TO-51 signs all the way north to 51 and TO-78 signs going south prior to that. (That was about a year after the I-39 signs went up.)
Scott O.

Not all who wander are lost...
Ah, the open skies, wind at my back, warm sun on my... wait, where the hell am I?!
As a matter of fact, I do own the road.
Raise your what?

Wisconsin - out-multiplexing your state since 1918.

agentsteel53

Quote from: Bryant5493 on February 01, 2009, 08:40:21 AM
Georgia has poor signage in places, such as when lanes end. Sometimes, lanes just end without any warning. That's just maddening.


Be well,

Bryant
Georgia is home to the absolute most hideous signing error in my experience.  I was going down a road in Atlanta at night that dead-ends .... silently, with no warning, with a *black tarp* over a pile of cinder blocks.

I was doing 35 (speed limit was marked as 35 or 40) and I basically had to slam the brakes at the last second.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

DrZoidberg

 Another signing question.

Since I-10 has been revamped on the west side of Houston, is the US 90 concurrency signed with it at all?  I always thought it was funny how US 90 vanished near Katy, and then didn't appear again until the east side of Houston.

"By the way...I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar."

mightyace

Tennessee does a poor job of signing its arterial highways.

I bet anyone to try and follow the US routes through Nashville without a road atlas or a GPS.  Especially with US31E and US31W north of town versus US 31 and US 31A south of town.

US 70 and US 70S leave the city both east and west but I'm only sure that US 70 goes through downtown!

There is also US 431, US 41, and US 41A.

All of these road go through downtown but the reassurance and directional signs are inadequate or just plain missing.

And out in the country, there is no consistency to sign usage and inadequate signing of through routes.

Makes me wanna  :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyace

I'm out of this F***KING PLACE!

agentsteel53

Memphis is also pretty bad... does anyone know where US-78 ends, for example?  It just kinda ... stops existing.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com



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