Street Name Signs/Blades

[TEG24601]

I'm curious about the prevailing opinion in regards to Street Blades.  More specifically what the opinions are regarding logos on the signs and what your preferred size would be for your traditional street blade on a stop sign?


My city is getting close to needing to replace their street blades, and I want to ensure that whatever happens, they are readable, and won't end up as the worst signs.

[agentsteel53]

standard FHWA fonts.  do not compress horizontally or vertically

green background, white text is fine.  really most any color scheme is fine.

no stupid fonts.  please, no stupid fonts.

[hobsini2]

The city of Hillside IL has some interesting ones that looks nice. Black background, white letters in a Times New Roman style font (all caps) like this one: https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Hillside+IL&aq=&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=11.685494,18.764648&vpsrc=6&t=h&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Hillside,+Cook,+Illinois&ll=41.877166,-87.902609&spn=0.005528,0.009162&z=17&cbll=41.877097,-87.902611&panoid=yRauQr6JXJ5yZoJuYUIteQ&cbp=12,55.46,,0,5.06&ei=MLTMUv3sH9GcgQTMsYHQDg&pw=2

[Thing 342]

Newport News, VA has some really nice blades:
http://goo.gl/maps/yzI5f

Simplicity is best, IMO.

[hotdogPi]

North Andover, MA

[US71]

standard FHWA fonts.  do not compress horizontally or vertically

green background, white text is fine.  really most any color scheme is fine.

no stupid fonts.  please, no stupid fonts.

Tahlequah, OK

[Zeffy]

Older styled signs in Trenton:

http://goo.gl/maps/DQkOm

[DTComposer]

Whatever is decided, I hope your city has the wherewithal to do the job thoroughly and consistently.

The town I grew up in had fairly standard-issue signs: FHWA font, black text on white, all caps, black border. Older signs had embossed letters, later signs had decal letters.

EXCEPT for one arterial street whose signs had white text on brown, "old West"-style serif font, all caps, no border. Don't know what the reasoning was, but I assume it happened around 1970 when they re-named the street.

THEN in the 1980s they started replacing the old white signs with white text on brown, same FHWA font, all caps, white border. After a few years, though, the replacement program seemed to stall.

THEN around 2000 they decided to replace all the signs downtown with a custom look. White text on brown, but mixed-case, serif font, larger-than-average blade.

THEN they seemed to re-start the replacement program, but the signs were different. Still white text on brown, but slightly different font, suffixes (Ave., Blvd.) in superscript, narrow margins.

The result: at least six styles of street sign in a town of 30,000.


All that said, I think simple is better. Most logos are difficult to make out at driving speed. I'd rather see the city name along the top or bottom.

[agentsteel53]

Tahlequah, OK

the speed limit sign doesn't have bad fonts at all.  kinda remind me of Oregon 1942.

as for the street blades - I can barely tell what it says on the English and the transliteration.  I cannot say whether or not the Cherokee (?) script in the middle is a good or a bad font.

[roadman]

City/town seals on street name signs are totally useless.  Not only are they all but illegible to drivers traveling at any sort of speed, but my observations have been that they tend to fade and wear out long before the rest of the sign.

As for color schemes, white on green is perfectly fine and should be the national standard for ALL street name signs.  This nonsense communities spout about "unique identity" is just that - nonsense.

[sammi]

as for the street blades - I can barely tell what it says on the English and the transliteration.  I cannot say whether or not the Cherokee (?) script in the middle is a good or a bad font.

It's the "official" font (really there's only one). But they need a font that works well with the FHWA fonts. Without zooming in, I can read Huckleberry Circle / Guwaya Udeyasdi and Muskogee Ave / Guso Galanudvi (?). But it takes some time and that's the problem.

---

From my hometown. While they could have used something instead of Arialveticaverstesk, I like the sign otherwise.

[elsmere241]

I'm starting to notice a trend around here where the blade for a secondary street points into an intersection rather than out from it.  That does make it easier to catch and read for traffic on the primary street, now that I've thought about it.

[Brandon]

Tahlequah, OK

the speed limit sign doesn't have bad fonts at all.  kinda remind me of Oregon 1942.

as for the street blades - I can barely tell what it says on the English and the transliteration.  I cannot say whether or not the Cherokee (?) script in the middle is a good or a bad font.

Not a clue, but I think that's just how they're written.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary

[NE2]

City/town seals on street name signs are totally useless.  Not only are they all but illegible to drivers traveling at any sort of speed, but my observations have been that they tend to fade and wear out long before the rest of the sign.

They're rather useful in knowing who to complain to about potholes and such. (Or at least having a better chance of being right.)

[NE2]

Not a clue, but I think that's just how they're written.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary

What part of 'font' don't you understand?

[Alps]

standard FHWA fonts.  do not compress horizontally or vertically

green background, white text is fine.  really most any color scheme is fine.

no stupid fonts.  please, no stupid fonts.

Whatever the current color scheme is, keep it, unless it replaced an older one that has more significance to your town (this is fairly common), in which case bring back the old scheme. MUTCD? What?

[6a]

City/town seals on street name signs are totally useless.  Not only are they all but illegible to drivers traveling at any sort of speed, but my observations have been that they tend to fade and wear out long before the rest of the sign.

They're rather useful in knowing who to complain to about potholes and such. (Or at least having a better chance of being right.)

Or to know when you're in a speed trap.

[TEG24601]

Our current scheme is Blue Signs with White Text (I haven't paid attention to the font, but will tonight when I go home).  The previous scheme, from the 80s, was Brown wooden signs with white stickers letters, and no extensions.  The lack of extensions causes issues because now we have streets that one organization says is a Street, another an Avenue, and a 3rd calls a Road.


This came about because the county was upgrading many of their signs to mixed case, and on a few roads, mainly those with lowercase Gs and Ys, they look odd, and want to avoid that when ours are replaced, as the last replacement was 1994, and they are getting looking their age, and are all CAPS.


As for the logo question, I was concerned because we have a city/county/state route that travels through the city, since the state doesn't have any state routes to spare for us, as was curious if placing the routes logo on the appropriate blades, or a close facsimile, would be acceptable, or would the consensus be to not have the logo at all.

[NE2]

As for the logo question, I was concerned because we have a city/county/state route that travels through the city, since the state doesn't have any state routes to spare for us, as was curious if placing the routes logo on the appropriate blades, or a close facsimile, would be acceptable, or would the consensus be to not have the logo at all.

Why not put the route shield in place of the logo?

[TEG24601]

As for the logo question, I was concerned because we have a city/county/state route that travels through the city, since the state doesn't have any state routes to spare for us, as was curious if placing the routes logo on the appropriate blades, or a close facsimile, would be acceptable, or would the consensus be to not have the logo at all.

Why not put the route shield in place of the logo?

Mainly because there is no Route Shield. 

This is all that is used to mark the route.  As Washington has no provision for 4-digit routes, and there are no available 3-digit, this was the compromise to fulfill the RCW about state routes should be designated to serve cities/towns with populations of 1000 or more (and we crossed 1000 permanent residents in 2006).
The logo on this sign is the city logo, and I thought that perhaps just it, and not a miniature version of the entire sign, would be interesting to include on those roads that the route follows, of course with the signs of sufficient size as to make it recognizable, but not distracting.

[Kacie Jane]

As Washington has no provision for 4-digit routes, and there are no available 3-digit...

Not true.  514, 517, and plenty of numbers starting at 533.  In fact it's not that far south of 531, so 533 wouldn't be all that out of place.  More likely, it's not signed as a state highway because, well, it's not a state highway.

[NE2]

More likely, it's not signed as a state highway because, well, it's not a state highway.

Yeah, this.

[sammi]

They can at least move the arrows down to a separate plaque like they do on other route assemblies. >.>

[TEG24601]

As Washington has no provision for 4-digit routes, and there are no available 3-digit...

Not true.  514, 517, and plenty of numbers starting at 533.  In fact it's not that far south of 531, so 533 wouldn't be all that out of place.  More likely, it's not signed as a state highway because, well, it's not a state highway.

True.  However, I was somewhat involved in consulting with the Mayor during his conversations with WSDOT, and they flat refused to connect a 53x number to a 52x number, and wouldn't create a bannered route, which I was blown away by.  WSDOT has, especially through the 90s assigned new routes over existing roadways, so it not being a state highway, because they didn't build it is specious at best.  It took him almost a year to get them to even consider adding mileage to a sign with the city name and an arrow on SR-525.  Which, prior to adding the mileage, people thought that the city was the strip mall at the corner, to which the arrow was pointing.  These are just some of the drawbacks to the city being 4 miles off of the highway.

[NE2]

However, I was somewhat involved in consulting with the Mayor during his conversations with WSDOT, and they flat refused to connect a 53x number to a 52x number

So why did the legislature (not WSDOT - the legislature assigns the numbers) create (in 1991) SR 310 connecting SR 3 to SR 304?

Sounds like a completely bullshit excuse. The mayor needs to talk to the state legislators and get one of them to create a new route.