Unique, Odd, or Interesting Signs aka The good, the bad, and the ugly

[steviep24]

I found an old I-490 shield that says New York on it. This is located on NY-386 (Elmgrove Rd.) in Rochester. NY hasn't installed state named interstate route shields in a very long time.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1739049,-77.7324031,3a,15y,210.13h,92.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCb8JFW_RjbUn-5UX2JtuAA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0

This stretch of NY-386 is owned and maintained by Monroe County.

[Max Rockatansky]

The gantry used here is sheets of metal over the skeleton.

Caltrans used that gantry type for at least a couple decades. Not at all unusual, lots of surviving examples in the Bay Area and in San Diego, just to name a couple regions.

There is a couple in Monterey, this one in particular is pretty nice looking I think:

https://flic.kr/p/2nd1y9k

[CoreySamson]

Spotted on SH-97 near Sand Springs...

https://goo.gl/maps/bxGSwfQBaxgQy5SS8

Egads.

[roadman65]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52451402059/in/dateposted-public/
The MS 607 shield looks typical but at the same time looks not like a shield.

[plain]

Spotted on SH-97 near Sand Springs...

https://goo.gl/maps/bxGSwfQBaxgQy5SS8

Egads.

Oh hell no 

[DrSmith]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52451402059/in/dateposted-public/
The MS 607 shield looks typical but at the same time looks not like a shield.

Beyond that there is an exit tab for "Exit 1" and "Exit 1" mentioned below as if it was an auxiliary sign that then needed a distance so the "Next exit 3 miles" was tacked on beneath or something.

[Android]

Spotted on SH-97 near Sand Springs...

https://goo.gl/maps/bxGSwfQBaxgQy5SS8

Egads.

Oh hell no 

Yeah, that's ghastly.  I like spotting the rare Series F in the wild, but only when done right.  This is not.   

[kirbykart]

Spotted on SH-97 near Sand Springs...

https://goo.gl/maps/bxGSwfQBaxgQy5SS8

Egads.

It's OkDOT. What did you expect?

[roadman65]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52452193199/in/dateposted-public/

I find it interesting that this gantry before 2013 spanned the entire side of the freeway. Prior to 2013, the assembly had a pull through.  I find it amazing that the part that supports this remaining sign can support itself despite the rest removed.

[Bobby5280]

Spotted on SH-97 near Sand Springs...

https://goo.gl/maps/bxGSwfQBaxgQy5SS8

Egads.

Given it's Oklahoma, it's almost a miracle that severely stretched lettering was not set in default Arial. So many commercial signs all over the place have squeezy-stretchy default Arial vomit crammed on their sign faces. Disgusting. It's only natural that piss poor standards of practice in the commercial sign space would bleed over into highway signs. I've seen a decent number of other ODOT signs featuring artificially squeezed type (there are several big green abominations in the Lawton area).

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/b8jCfkx5X13DbUScA
This sign about passenger cars only is irrelevant.  The road this sign is on prohibits any kind of truck or commercial from driving past the sign.  So it's like preaching to the choir.

[ClassicHasClass]

^^^

That is a yugly US 6 shield, too.

[Android]

Uh, I think that US6 looks fine.  I've personally seen worse.   

[CoreySamson]

This is just... blech...

https://goo.gl/maps/bX2KjA1XsRWXxrQy8

[Bobby5280]

Of course that example of distorted squeezy-stretchy type on a diamond shaped advisory sign would be in Oklahoma. Face-palm.

[Scott5114]

New Mexico makes me feel
       better

about Oklahoma's signs.

[JoePCool14]

New Mexico makes me feel
       better

about Oklahoma's signs.

Are those two different signs posts as well?

[plain]

New Mexico makes me feel
       better

about Oklahoma's signs.

Are those two different signs posts as well?

Sure as hell looks like it

[Dirt Roads]

New Mexico makes me feel
       better

about Oklahoma's signs.

Are those two different signs posts as well?

Sure as hell looks like it

Oooh!  The one on the right looks like an original tubular BGS mast from the 1950s and early 1960s.  There aren't very many remaining.

No dice:  https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0348932,-107.4779322,3a,26y,149.62h,92.05t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sQ4xXYDw0bwHS5Lef_uASmg!2e0!5s20220501T000000!7i16384!8i8192
Looks like it's been this way since the 2007 GSV.  So that must be the angle picking up the sign mast and the utility pole behind it.

[JoePCool14]

Thanks for checking. That's why I asked, I thought it looked like it was just the angle of the photo.

[Lukeisroads]

Have you ever seen a Do Not Enter sign like this?
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3835721,-119.1403541,3a,15y,199.42h,88.74t,1.04r/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLH6r21MT8MPkOJufjBteOQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[roadman65]

https://goo.gl/maps/ELJq1QW2fZSnSmcAA
A bad place for a through mileage sign.

I think NJDOT placed it here, because the route it references here (US 206) merges onto US 202 in where engineers felt it would confuse US 202 motorists if they saw points for US 206.

Another instance one is strangely placed before a concurrency for one route is for US 202 SB at NJ 31.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5033327,-74.8515999,3a,75y,264.15h,96.74t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sd7KBVebVq4MMa1Yvf13hyA!2e0!5s20190901T000000!7i16384!8i8192


However in the latter they removed the assembly.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5033241,-74.8516302,3a,75y,271.27h,97.51t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sHVcy-TagZWWopKS5qVPuKA!2e0!5s20220901T000000!7i16384!8i8192

[rellis97]

The City of Auburn Hills, MI has recently decided to replace most if not all of its signs with Trebuchet MS font. These signs look absolutely terrible!
The links below show only a tiny handful of the enormous amount of signs the city replaced using non-compliant MUTCD signs. Check it out...

1. Executive Hills Blvd at Featherstone Rd
2. The 25 mph advisory speed warning below this sign...
3. ...as well as below this sign
4. The numerals on this I-75 shield
5. The "Ahead" plaque mounted below this sign
6. Bridge Ices Before Road
7. Proceed on green light only
8. Even some of the city's temporary signage has Trebuchet, like this guy...
9. ...and this guy
10. Featherstone Road at Squirrel Rd
11. Even the city's street name sign blades have Trebuchet! This one's an oddity because normally Oakland County maintains these signs, but apparently not!
12. More street name sign blades near Oakland University
13. No turns (non-compliant sign on the right). You can see a compliant MUTCD "No Turns" sign on the left. Yes, even the diagrammatic Michigan Left sign for Squirrel Rd has Trebuchet (shown off to the right)
14. You can see the differences in the font with these two signs. In this situation, the sign mounted on the left side is non-compliant, with the sign on the right being correct. Even the arrows are different. Why did the city only replace one sign here instead of both?
15. This is a mess!
16. Even bigger mess here!
17. A guide sign to St. John Fisher Chapel
18. Five Points Dr at University Dr.
19. Local deliveries only

If I had more time, I could dig around on Google Maps and show much more non-compliant signage, but you can see that these incorrectly-made signs are EVERYWHERE throughout the city of Auburn Hills. And they are still being installed!

[steviep24]

Found a NY route shield with Helvetica numerals.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1465523,-77.7133801,3a,15y,272.48h,89.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2CAWW9ImlAPz6632SSJJdA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0

[Bobby5280]

The City of Auburn Hills, MI has recently decided to replace most if not all of its signs with Trebuchet MS font. These signs look absolutely terrible!

Yeah, no kidding! Those signs suck!

I wonder who made the call to change typefaces on that town's traffic signs to Trebuchet. And why? Did the culprit think Trebuchet looked a little like Clearview Highway and thus made it good enough to use as a substitute? Or is that just the culprit's favorite typeface?

Trebuchet is a very poor choice for traffic sign use, not because of its aesthetic style, but because there are only 4 basic styles in that type family (Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold-Italic). There are no variations in width like you get with the Series Gothic and Clearview Highway families. Those fonts range from naturally very condensed to partially wide.

The lack of width flexibility in the Trebuchet type family results in these sign abominations. A bunch of the copy is artificially squeezed or stretched to fit on the sign panel. As someone who designs commercial signs for a living, I have a very intense hatred for type that is distorted like that especially when some no-talent hack knee-jerk chooses default Arial and then distorts that type. Man I hate that.

If some city employee is going to improv the type choices on traffic signs in a town I guess it's too much to ask for them to use a more sophisticated approach: like choosing a modern OpenType Variable typeface with variable axis sliders for font weight and width. Google fonts has some of these kinds of variable fonts which can be downloaded for free. You just need graphics software able to use those kinds of fonts. So many people doing sign "design" work can't get past Arial in their font menus.