What Is Wooden In Your State (re: Signs)?

[Truvelo]

These streetlight columns on Long Island are wooden.

Edit - a close inspection of the picture suggests the posts of the variable message sign are also wooden.

[mjb2002]

Back when I was in elementary school, I would come across wooden signs in parts of the Midlands. Not since then, though.

And certainly not anymore since wooden signage is non-compliant with MUTCD.

[DRMan]

Maine uses wooden posts on ground mounted non-freeway signs, at least on state roads. 

[roadfro]

Back when I was in elementary school, I would come across wooden signs in parts of the Midlands. Not since then, though.

And certainly not anymore since wooden signage is non-compliant with MUTCD.

I couldn't find anything in the MUTCD that prohibits signage made from wood. If any wood signs were to be used, they would have to comply with all requirements pertaining to size and reflectivity.

That said, it's much easier (and cheaper, I'd imagine) to create signs from aluminum or other metal blanks than trying to carve something out of wood, paint it and make it reflective. Additionally, I would expect metal signs to have a longer useful service life.

[US71]

Arkansas: nothing

Missouri: some guide signs and sign posts (though there seems to be a gradual shift to metal posts)

[berberry]

This thread reminds me of a situation we had in a Jackson metro neighborhood back in the 70s and 80s.  All of the road signs within it - speed limit signs, stop signs, yield signs, etc. - were entirely constructed of wood.  They were the correct size and color, at least so far as I knew, but the wood was finished in such a way that the surface was a bit rough.  The paint, as I recall, was reflective, but it might not have met modern standards; I don't know. 

One interesting feature I remember was the borders:  every sign had a border that protruded from the surface by about a half- or quarter-inch.  The border was painted white.

Sometime in the mid-to-late 80s they began to modify those signs.  In particular, the painted-on stop and yield signs were covered up with the more common metal type, but otherwise the wooden structure, including the border, was maintained.  That situation only lasted a year or so, after which all of the signs were replaced with the more ordinary full-metal versions.

For locals who might be wondering what I'm talking about, it was Castlewoods off Lakeland. 

[ctsignguy]

CT used to have a lot of wooden route/interstate shields plus warning and regulatory signs up until the 1980s.  During that time they were replaced with metal. 

How true....and i have a lot of them in my collection...i was told they were yanked down because the Feds started insisting on some degree of uniformity and the old classic CT wood signs werent it  (There still are a very few survivors of the wood signs still hanging around, but very few....and none on the main roads

Massachusetts and New Hampshire also used them at one time

[agentsteel53]

Massachusetts and New Hampshire also used them at one time

as did Maine... and Rhode Island way back in the day (state-named cutout era).  don't recall Vermont but I'm sure it happened.

[US12]

Michigan has a lot of wood on I 94 between Marshall and Wayne County line. Also I think most of those multi speed limit signs are wood too in the state

[bulldog1979]

Michigan has a lot of wood on I 94 between Marshall and Wayne County line. Also I think most of those multi speed limit signs are wood too in the state

Wood signs or wood sign posts though?

[formulanone]

Michigan has a lot of wood on I 94 between Marshall and Wayne County line. Also I think most of those multi speed limit signs are wood too in the state

Wood signs or wood sign posts though?

Having just driven on of I-94 and I-275 and I-75, there's lots of wooden posts for all but the largest of green signs, but the signs seem to be metal.

[US12]

Is this wooden because Michigan has a lot of these

Uploaded with ImageShack.us By the way this is on US 127 by St. Johns

[shadyjay]

In VT, there are still a few non-expressway green destination signs that are wood, but they are getting harder and harder to come by.  There's a few route junction diagrammatic signs that are wood, including a black-on-white one on US 2 in Waterbury.  Most route markers have been replaced in recent years, though I do remember seeing the small square state route markers that I think were wood.  Sometimes they'd be mounted on the opposite side of the road on the back of other signs. 

Routes which have a number but are not state-maintained are best places to find old relics....such as VT 121 (Westminster), VT 132 (north of Sharon), VT 140 (west of Wallingford) and such. 

[ctsignguy]

Very few wood signs left in Connecticut, but found these two still in the wild....

[apeman33]

I'm pretty sure every sign you'll see in Kansas is metal and has always been. I don't recall seeing anything but. There seems to be a transitioning from wood to metal posts on non-interstate highways.

I remember thinking how odd it was the first few times I traveled into Missouri and saw wood signs with the info on a sheet glued to it.

[Beeper1]

Rhode Island has most ground-mounted non-BGS signs on wooden posts.  Though they have been slowly replacing them with metal U-channel posts the last couple years.

[adt1982]

Illinois uses wooden posts for a lot of its rural signs.

[Brandon]

Illinois uses wooden posts for a lot of its rural signs.

Like these on the Cook/DuPage line?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.756491,-87.916653&spn=0.011701,0.027466&t=h&z=16&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=41.756424,-87.916801&panoid=ycED99bqSchz4VZ9puIAxg&cbp=12,282.48,,0,8.65

A little less than rural there.