The Worst of Road Signs

[1995hoo]

- MD 216 shield is way too big
- Destination legend, "Scaggsville" either looks too big or too wide.
- Cardinal direction, "West" shouldn't be in Clearview and is probably slightly too big.
- Arrow should be to the right of the destination legend or between with the cardinal direction and the destination legend, which for some reason took up the whole bottom of the sign.

I'm pretty sure there are a few more errors with this sign that I haven't found yet.

....

Some people here (I'm not one of them) would object to the exit tab being in Clearview.

[roadman]

- Destination legend, "Scaggsville" either looks too big or too wide.

Insufficent side and bottom margins, especially with the 'gg' in the legend.  Could be the overall panel was deliberatly undersized to reuse existing supports.

[PurdueBill]

I knew I'd seen that right-hand sign before.....

I hate those Maryland exit tabs now.  Too much space between EXIT and numerals, for no apparent reason.  Now Delaware is doing it too.  Sigh.

[1995hoo]

....

I hate those Maryland exit tabs now.  Too much space between EXIT and numerals, for no apparent reason.  Now Delaware is doing it too.  Sigh.

That one's not even really all that bad for Maryland. I've seen a number of signs in Maryland with full-width exit "tabs"* with the word "EXIT" flush left and the exit number flush right. These signs on the Wilson Bridge are in Virginia but are Maryland-spec signage, presumably posted by Maryland under the two states' agreement for operating the bridge.

*"Tabs" in quotation marks to denote it's not a separate panel but rather just an area delineated by a white line.

[formulanone]

I think it's "how picky can we be", rather than Worst Of...maybe one for the Design Errors thread. Sure, the exit numbers are small (par for the course for Maryland, I've heard), but otherwise it's a run-of-the mill big green sign which teeters between mediocre and average.

[PHLBOS]

These signs on the Wilson Bridge are in Virginia but are Maryland-spec signage, presumably posted by Maryland under the two states' agreement for operating the bridge.

Those don't actually look too bad.  The likely reasoning behind not using an EXIT "tab" for that example is due to the sign being a monlithic BGS/BBrS panel for both Exits 177 B & C rather than 2 separate panels.

I knew I'd seen that right-hand sign before.....

I hate those Maryland exit tabs now.  Too much space between EXIT and numerals, for no apparent reason.  Now Delaware is doing it too.  Sigh.

Based on that link, it would appear that MdDOT/SHA are the poster child(ren) for how NOT to apply/implement the Clearview font.  They're obviously not the only offenders (VDOT & TxDOT come to mind) and DelDOT's newest BGS installations appear to be doing a Monkey See/Monkey Do approach with their southwestern neighbor.

I think it's "how picky can we be", rather than Worst Of...maybe one for the Design Errors thread. Sure, the exit numbers are small (par for the course for Maryland, I've heard), but otherwise it's a run-of-the mill big green sign which teeters between mediocre and average.

I agree.  That Scaggsville (love that name) BGS example is more of a Design-Error sign rather than the Worst of IMHO.

[1995hoo]

....

I knew I'd seen that right-hand sign before.....

I hate those Maryland exit tabs now.  Too much space between EXIT and numerals, for no apparent reason.  Now Delaware is doing it too.  Sigh.

Based on that link, it would appear that MdDOT/SHA are the poster child(ren) for how NOT to apply/implement the Clearview font.  They're obviously not the only offenders (VDOT & TxDOT come to mind) and DelDOT's newest BGS installations appear to be doing a Monkey See/Monkey Do approach with their southwestern neighbor.

.....

Several of the signs on that page are VDOT signs. I pass the following ones regularly:
–The HOV-2 sign (it's on westbound I-66 between the Nutley Street and VA-123 exits)
–The "Right Lane Ends Merge Left" sign (it's on southbound I-395 in the northern portion of the interchange with VA-236)
–The sign used for the "1/2 mile" example (it's also on southbound I-395 a little to the north of the yellow sign noted above)

Some of the other signs could be from Virginia, but if they are, I don't recognize them.

[vtk]

That should be all-caps, regardless of font.

Also, that file name almost says TinyBox.

[sammi]

Also, that file name almost says TinyBox.

It's as if you pressed the 4 key on a 4×3 keypad one too many times. ( GHI 4 )

[jakeroot]

Also, that file name almost says TinyBox.

It's as if you pressed the 4 key on a 4×3 keypad one too many times. ( GHI 4 )

Holy shit that's awesome. I'm not even gonna fix the sign.

EDIT: Nevermind, can't help it:

[Zeffy]

Two failures on a single post.


(From GMSV)

I didn't know Clearview seeped it's way into Washington, DC on US 50.

[Scott5114]

Not Clearview: The top sign is Helvetica, the bottom is stretched Series C.

[Molandfreak]

When did this thread become "signs in fonts you don't like?" 

[vtk]

Several hundred posts in.

[Scott5114]

Refresher from post #1...

Post the worst, most ineptly put together pieces of crap in your state. Not just "oh, it's in Clearview", "wrong type of shield", or "it's a bubble shield" or anything like that. We're talking pure, unadulterated suck here. Stuff that makes you wonder what they were thinking. Stuff that should only result from a night of binge drinking at the sign shop.

[Android]

I have to say, that this thread may have lost its way at some point.  I mean, a couple of moths ago, I posted a speed limit sign with one digit in Clearview and the other FHWA and was given $h!t about it.  To me, that totally fits the brief of "what they were thinking. Stuff that should only result from a night of binge drinking at the sign shop"  This was after a series of posts where people complained about the miniscule difference in fonts of the word "TO"... 

And I will never stop being annoyed though by people posting a large landscape photo of an annoying sign and not cropping it first.  This thread is about SIGNS, focus on them, people! I hate it when the sign is about 5% of the entire image.   

[flowmotion]

Page #1 has some signs that aren't anywhere close to "worst", so this thread went off the rails immediately. Still entertaining though.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Page #1 has some signs that aren't anywhere close to "worst", so this thread went off the rails immediately. Still entertaining though.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the Craig County sign in the first post. Er, wait.

[Takumi]

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the craIG countY sign in the first post. Er, wait.

Fixed.

Although further down the first page there are some rather uninteresting examples...

[ElPanaChevere]

This...




If it were me, I'd have the US 29/US 78 shield on top, followed by the control cities on the bottom. It's too small to read and it looks tacky, imo. If that's not possible, then have an overhead sign: left lane- US 29/78: Stone Mountain, Monroe, etc., right lane- Ponce de Leon Avenue. Simple as that.


And this too...

[hbelkins]

My experience with Georgia is that a lot of its route marker assemblies could qualify. But I do like that US 129 marker.

[Zeffy]

Here's what I came up with to fix the layout of those signs...



On the first sign, I know the MUTСD doesn't like more than 2 lines of destinations, but what I did here technically is still 2 lines right? 

[Billy F 1988]

Sorry to pop the bubble, but I believe this is what the assembly should look like. I've omitted Monroe and Athens for US 29 and US 78 because the immediate control points for both are Lawrenceville and Stone Mountain. You could say "But Athens and Monroe are part of US 29/78." Yes, but I wouldn't put two control points on the same assembly, so, when it comes to US 29, would you want Lawrenceville or Athens as the main control point? When it comes to US 78, would you want Stone Mountain or Monroe as the main control point? In my version, Stone Mountain and Lawrencville are main control points for US 29/78.

[agentsteel53]

very nice!  good to see someone using '57 spec shields for the "modern" US style, as opposed to the somewhat more garish '70.

[Billy F 1988]

Yeah. I like that style better than the '70 spec anyway. Thank mUtcd57 for providing the polygon shape that I used for that panel.