States' contributions

[Quillz]

Pennsylvania gave us Clearview...

(oh, are we only talking about GOOD contributions?)

Clearview is a good contribution. Only in mixed case, though.

Clearview is only supposed to be used as mixed case. Using it in all caps defeats its entire purpose.

[Alps]

Which state gave us Interstate bubble shields?

Those had better never see the light of MUTCDay.

[agentsteel53]

Pennsylvania gave us the 1970 specification of highway markers (US and interstate) by 1966. 

the oldest non-cutout US route marker I know of (one that isn't an integral part of a guide sign) is a late 1930s Massachusetts design.

bizarre!

[agentsteel53]

Which state gave us Interstate bubble shields?

no idea, but it seems a fairly recent invention - only with digital design is it sufficiently easy to distort a vector graphic along one axis and not the other that it seems, to the lazy person in charge of implementation, to be the most effective solution.

back in the day, unless you were blowing up 1:1, you had to be all worried about perspective effects as you projected your design onto various new coordinate planes.  now it's stupidly easy to expand in one dimension and alas that is what the stupid do.

I'd say the oldest bubble shields date back to the late 80s, and they only started getting somewhat common by the 90s.

[huskeroadgeek]

Wasn't Iowa the first state to use individual big blue Gas, Food, Lodging signs w/ business logos?   I remember seeing those on a cross country trip in the heartland state in 1983, but it took several more years before I saw them anywhere else.   I still remember Ohio doing a "test" of these signs in the late 80s on I-75 between Findlay & Lima, as if they thought it may not be such a great innovation.

I think you're correct. I had forgotten that since they are used in every state now(I think) but I remember them being something unique to Iowa for awhile too.

[Quillz]

Has the Jersey Barrier/k-rail been mentioned yet? Originated in New Jersey, obviously.