Different color street blades downtown than other parts of a city

[SidS1045]

In continuation with NYC street signs, in the past, if a street was dedicated to an individual, an additional street sign was located below the one that had the name of the street. The color scheme was white on blue. Some still linger, but, today, the DOT uses the universal white on green for that purpose.

Also, in lower Manhattan, you could find some white on black street signs that represent the financial district.

Going back before about 1990, NYC street signs were color-coded by borough:

Manhattan:  black on yellow
Brooklyn:  white on black
Queens:  blue on white
Bronx:  white on blue
Staten Island:  black on yellow

[admtrap]

Fresno CA uses a hodgepodge

Downtown mostly tends to be blue text on a white background, on a rectangular blade.  At traffic signals, a larger version is used.


Outside of downtown, it's mostly white text, green background, but I've seen at least four completely different blade styles within the city limits, not including the downtown style.  Some are perfect rectangles, some are bulged.  Some have lots of information - street directional prefix, street type suffix, address range - and some are just bare naked street names without anything "extra." 

In general, there are sorta geographical zones - the north side gets the "naked" signs, the west side has the perfect rectangles with full info, the east side has the bulged blades.  Traffic signals usually get signs similar to the west side zone, but larger - but some use "north side" style signs instead.

Two color schemes, but at least 7 distinct blade types.

[roadman65]

Though very common to see brown blades in historical areas, to list the official name of the district here denotes the older part of Astoria, OR.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/51350671782/in/album-72157719515990111/

[Pink Jazz]

Mesa, AZ uses different colors in different districts. The Fiesta District uses two colors - older signs are red, newer ones are purple. The Power Knowledge Corridor and the Falcon Field district use blue. Eastmark uses brown.

[US71]

These are used around the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville , as opposed to green/white

[roadman65]

NYC used to use different color blades for different boroughs. Though Staten Island and Manhattan both used Black on yellow while Brooklyn used White on Blue. Don't remember what Bronx and Queens used to use.

Then in the Mid Eighties Midtown Manhattan went green with the Statue of Liberty on them. Then later the whole Borough went green, but now I believe different neighborhoods of Manhattan use different colors and different fonts.

[US 89]

Salt Lake City used to do this to an extent. Most were green, but the street blades on some of the traffic lights downtown were black, and the ones in the Sugar House neighborhood were blue.

A good amount of black signs are still up downtown, but it appears this is no longer being done for new installs (example where black signs were replaced with green). Pretty sure all the blue ones are gone.

[Big John]

Salt Lake City used to do this to an extent. Most were green, but the street blades on some of the traffic lights downtown were black, and the ones in the Sugar House neighborhood were blue.

A good amount of black signs are still up downtown, but it appears this is no longer being done for new installs (example where black signs were replaced with green). Pretty sure all the blue ones are gone.

2009 MUTCD was changed to only allow white, green, blue or brown sign blades.

[kirbykart]

Not quite the same thing, but nearly every street blade in Franklinville, NY has a maple leaf design on it.
In Buffalo, NY, blue street blades are more common than green ones in most parts of the city.

[webny99]

In Buffalo, NY, blue street blades are more common than green ones in most parts of the city.

Same with Rochester, and there are also brown street blades in some neighborhoods.

[-- US 175 --]

Salt Lake City used to do this to an extent. Most were green, but the street blades on some of the traffic lights downtown were black, and the ones in the Sugar House neighborhood were blue.

A good amount of black signs are still up downtown, but it appears this is no longer being done for new installs (example where black signs were replaced with green). Pretty sure all the blue ones are gone.

2009 MUTCD was changed to only allow white, green, blue or brown sign blades.

Looks like Farmers Branch, TX (red blades) and the TCU area of Fort Worth (purple blades) haven't played nice with the MUTCD for a little while then.

[steviep24]

In Buffalo, NY, blue street blades are more common than green ones in most parts of the city.

Same with Rochester, and there are also brown street blades in some neighborhoods.

The Charlotte Beach area of Rochester has black street blades.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.2573016,-77.6093163,3a,15y,31.16h,109.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8JMjM6PYeitY-0R1sCSwHQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0

[US 89]

Tallahassee has black street blades along West Gaines Street, and green everywhere else.

Like most back-lit street blades in Tallahassee, they omit street suffixes...except when they're used to sign Gaines Street itself in most cases.

[Pink Jazz]

Speaking of black street blades, when the original 2009 MUTCD was drafted, it was supposed to include white on black as an option instead of black on white. However, this was dropped from the final rule due to visibility concerns due to black being a non-retroreflective sheeting color.  It was then added in the final rule to add black on white as an option since this was a fairly common color scheme for street blades.

[andrepoiy]

Kingston, ON has different street blades for the University district as well as Downtown.

Downtown:



University District:



Outside: