Preceeding Zeros on Mile Posts

[ethanhopkin14]

I have seen this before here and there and kinda forgot about it until I accidently found this one.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.1227065,-104.0313626,3a,16.6y,71.86h,88.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRYDcZqRNo1JD6F6WARaDqg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

I was wondering if anyone has seen ones like these and why these make their way through. 

[hotdogPi]

Not a milepost, but I took this a few days ago. (The seemingly identical sign in the background has no leading zero.) Lawrence, MA.

[ethanhopkin14]

Not a milepost, but I took this a few days ago. (The seemingly identical sign in the background has no leading zero.) Lawrence, MA.

I think that's a category for this thread.  Preceding zeros fascinate me in a weird way, because there are some cases where they are encouraged, and other cases where they are majorly frowned upon.  No in-between. 

[Scott5114]

I was wondering if anyone has seen ones like these and why these make their way through. 

Since standard mileposts stack the digits vertically, number of digits is the only determining factor as to panel size (i.e. you can't pull tricks like slipping a three-digit number into a two-digit space if one of the digits is "1"). If the vast majority of mileposts in a given maintenance district are two-digit, it could be easier to just use a two-digit blank with a zero rather than keep 18 one-digit blanks around for miles 1 to 9.

Or maybe someone ran over Milepost 3 in particular, and there were no one-digit blanks handy, so someone ran off a "Mile 03" rather than mess around trying to cut one down to size.

[deathtopumpkins]

I was wondering if anyone has seen ones like these and why these make their way through. 

Since standard mileposts stack the digits vertically, number of digits is the only determining factor as to panel size (i.e. you can't pull tricks like slipping a three-digit number into a two-digit space if one of the digits is "1"). If the vast majority of mileposts in a given maintenance district are two-digit, it could be easier to just use a two-digit blank with a zero rather than keep 18 one-digit blanks around for miles 1 to 9.

Or maybe someone ran over Milepost 3 in particular, and there were no one-digit blanks handy, so someone ran off a "Mile 03" rather than mess around trying to cut one down to size.

Wouldn't it be even easier to just use a two-digit blank without adding the leading zero though?

[formulanone]

Yeah, those are weird...I hadn't seen much of that elsewhere. I-20's start out in western Texas has leading zeroes on all of the first nine mile markers:


Pennsylvania offers up a redundant zero with a "0/10" mile marker on US 1 at the Maryland border:

[ethanhopkin14]

https://goo.gl/maps/NR8WH8zTEdqrBNQT6

Two preceding zeros on a route marker. 

[hotdogPi]

https://goo.gl/maps/NR8WH8zTEdqrBNQT6

Two preceding zeros on a route marker.

European E-routes have leading zeroes for some low numbers that indicate it has the importance of a 3-digit route instead of a 2-digit route. Is that the case here?

[Scott5114]

I was wondering if anyone has seen ones like these and why these make their way through. 

Since standard mileposts stack the digits vertically, number of digits is the only determining factor as to panel size (i.e. you can't pull tricks like slipping a three-digit number into a two-digit space if one of the digits is "1"). If the vast majority of mileposts in a given maintenance district are two-digit, it could be easier to just use a two-digit blank with a zero rather than keep 18 one-digit blanks around for miles 1 to 9.

Or maybe someone ran over Milepost 3 in particular, and there were no one-digit blanks handy, so someone ran off a "Mile 03" rather than mess around trying to cut one down to size.

Wouldn't it be even easier to just use a two-digit blank without adding the leading zero though?

Not necessarily, if the sign design software automatically tries to resize the panel boundaries to the legend. I imagine it would be hard to make a single digit look good on a two-digit blank, anyway. (Normally, you'd center everything in the panel, but with MILE going horizontally, it looks really weird if it's not at the top of the blank.)

[ethanhopkin14]

I was wondering if anyone has seen ones like these and why these make their way through. 

Since standard mileposts stack the digits vertically, number of digits is the only determining factor as to panel size (i.e. you can't pull tricks like slipping a three-digit number into a two-digit space if one of the digits is "1"). If the vast majority of mileposts in a given maintenance district are two-digit, it could be easier to just use a two-digit blank with a zero rather than keep 18 one-digit blanks around for miles 1 to 9.

Or maybe someone ran over Milepost 3 in particular, and there were no one-digit blanks handy, so someone ran off a "Mile 03" rather than mess around trying to cut one down to size.

Wouldn't it be even easier to just use a two-digit blank without adding the leading zero though?

Not necessarily, if the sign design software automatically tries to resize the panel boundaries to the legend. I imagine it would be hard to make a single digit look good on a two-digit blank, anyway. (Normally, you'd center everything in the panel, but with MILE going horizontally, it looks really weird if it's not at the top of the blank.)

Why not?  New Mexico does it all the time. 

[Scott5114]

New Mexico doing something all the time is a pretty good indication that it's a bad idea...

[KCRoadFan]

New Mexico doing something all the time is a pretty good indication that it's a bad idea...

Throwing pizza onto a roof, for example.

[Scott5114]

New Mexico doing something all the time is a pretty good indication that it's a bad idea...

Throwing pizza onto a roof, for example.

The state route marker does resemble what you'd expect a pizza thrown onto a roof to look like, though.

[Takumi]

VA 288 has these.