yet another topic on California freeway signing practices

[agentsteel53]

looking more at that '58 manual, I see the tenths-of-mile standard for guide signs, which went away about the same time as the switch from 2/3 to 3/4 case ratio (as I have never seen a sign that is a mix of the two) sometime in '58...

and also - Castro Freeway?! 

[J N Winkler]

"Roseville 5, Sacramento 23, Oakland 110" just as it has done since the late 1950's.

is that even the correct distance along I-80?  Or is that the old US-40 distance?

Not sure--I can't remember if I saw that exact sign the last time I drove through Roseville on I-80.  This sign is not as obviously fictional as, say, G23.

I was just looking at the 1958 planning manual, and it seems to specify black signs with white legend for conventional low-speed roads!

For the state highway system it might have, but not necessarily for locally maintained roads.  I am not sure the planning manual applied to local agencies.

When did CA switch away from white signs for low-speed conventional roads?  1957 or '58, switching to photo-inverse black with white legend.

I am not convinced they switched in one go.  I think black-on-white and white-on-black were specified together for a certain period of time.  Traffic manuals of the period left contrast reversal essentially to the designer's discretion.

When did CA switch from black background to green background?

As posted upthread, I think the change took effect for conventional-road guide signs around 1960.  I think at this time the option to use white background vanished.

when did CA switch away from porcelain? looks like by 1958 - perhaps at the same time as they switched from white background to black background.

For conventional-road guide signs, the switch would have happened with the changeover to green background at latest.  (I am assuming that porcelain would not have been used with AGA copy.  I think black-background signs had AGA copy beginning in 1958, but it should still have been possible to use porcelain for white-background signs in well-lit settings.)

(Another specification found in the 1958 manual is the 2/3 ratio of lowercase to uppercase letters, for side-of-the-road high-speed signs, as opposed to AASHO's 3/4 interstate standard - I have seen black signs with the 3/4 ratio, with date stamp as early as 1958 and as late as 1961.  I've also seen side-of-the-road green with '58 stamp, so it must've been a gradual switch.)

3:2 uppercase/lowercase was the standard from about 1950 to late 1958.  Thereafter, Caltrans changed to 4:3 uppercase/lowercase as specified in the AASHO manual (and already used by various Eastern turnpike agencies).  "Classic" 3:2 legend used Series D, not Series E, for the uppercase letters.  "Late" 3:2 tended to use Series E rather than Series D.  The first edition of the traffic manual in the 4:3 era (for which I have a partial copy) used a lot of old 3:2 art for the illustrations, with 4:3 dimensioning.  The 3:2 art even at that late stage was a mixture of "classic" and "late."

[J N Winkler]

looking more at that '58 manual, I see the tenths-of-mile standard for guide signs, which went away about the same time as the switch from 2/3 to 3/4 case ratio (as I have never seen a sign that is a mix of the two) sometime in '58...

Yup, G23 with miles and underlined tenths went away in 1958.  As I understand it, there were actually two editions of the traffic manual in 1958.  The earlier one had 3:2 dimensioning and the old version of G23 with underlined tenths.  The later manual had what were essentially Interstate signs, including AASHO's version of G23 with fractions.

BTW, the general name for the sign type covered by the Caltrans G23 spec is "interchange sequence sign."

[agentsteel53]

For conventional-road guide signs, the switch would have happened with the changeover to green background at latest.  (I am assuming that porcelain would not have been used with AGA copy.  I think black-background signs had AGA copy beginning in 1958, but it should still have been possible to use porcelain for white-background signs in well-lit settings.)

I have seen two examples of black signs with button copy, but both are LA TRAFFIC COMM, not Cal Div Hwys - here is one:



I believe at one point that sign had a white 7 shield on the higher pole, and then when it was taken down, LA used the opportunity to put up their own sign.

If you look very carefully under the second "h" in "Church", you can make out a blob on the outline that - trust me - says "LA TRAFFIC COMM".  Also interesting in the background is a green LA TRAFFIC COMM sign with what appears to be oddly fading retroreflective sheeting.

The other sign is on Century Blvd westbound (I think? If not that, then another major e-w blvd in that area) just after I-110 and says "LA Airport, 7 mi".  

I have never seen a black sign with button copy issued by the Division of Highways.  The oldest I've seen is the 1960 pair I mentioned on CA-79 at I-10, and after that, it is 1963.  All these are green.

[agentsteel53]

As I understand it, there were actually two editions of the traffic manual in 1958.  The earlier one had 3:2 dimensioning and the old version of G23 with underlined tenths.  The later manual had what were essentially Interstate signs, including AASHO's version of G23 with fractions.

the one you sent me is the early one - dated Jan 1 1958.  I know someone that has a '58 but I do not know if it is early or late.  I will have to ask.  If it is late, then I can get access to photographing the whole thing.

[agentsteel53]

looking at the obsolete guide sign specs now - it seems a lot of the green guide signs were authorized in 1959 (the black ones are labeled obsolete as of Sept '59), so I would imagine that is when they really went into circulation.  The '58 green sign I saw must've been an experiment, like the '60 non-porcelain sign.

I do not offhand remember where the '58 green sign is.  I know some that are repainted from black to green (including one with ACSC logo and all-caps letters!) - I used to live 5 blocks from that one.

also, July of 1962 was when CA adopted the 1961 AASHO specs - solid shields instead of outlines, and also wider interstate shields.

there is, oddly, a batch of approvals from Aug '59 for black signs - including some with interstate shields.  There is a revision of 12/59 and they are marked obsolete in July '62, which implies to me that they really are for green signs, and they just forgot to change the description.  Mistakes in these official layout sheets are nothing new (see the '57 US shield spec that describes one shield shape and draws another.)

then there are some approvals from 1960 for black signs with outline shields and reflective sheeting for the white legend, and some for white signs with outline shields and no reflective sheeting... some stragglers, perhaps, before a big universal greening that must've been complete within a few years?

also, some April 1958 approvals for small green signs with reflective white legend - that must be when they started going away from porcelain.

finally, a batch of undated specs that I am guessing are from 1955-56.  Including a 23x27 CALIFORNIA spade (modern layout, but classic bear aspect ratio) and a few others...

(the '62 manual shows all green signs.)

[TheStranger]

"Roseville 5, Sacramento 23, Oakland 110" just as it has done since the late 1950's.

is that even the correct distance along I-80?  Or is that the old US-40 distance?

5 miles from Roseville would be approximately in Rocklin (Exit 105-107) range for modern I-80...so that probably would be the US 40 distance (specifically factoring in the old route in Dixon), since the Sacramento city limits are reached at Exit 95 (Business 80), approximately 10 miles from downtown/midtown...and Oakland is about 2 miles south of I-80 Exit 11 (Powell Street in Emeryville).

[J N Winkler]

Time for a little show and tell.  Both of these drawings are rather free renderings of obsolete Caltrans G5 sign specs with signature dates in 1958.  (G5 is the generic spec number for a confirmation sign or, as roadgeeks often call it, a mileage sign.  It is not to be confused with interchange sequence signs, which have their own spec number--G23--as well as additional design criteria including the requirement that any shields used on the sign be sized so that the height of the shield digits is equal to the lowercase loop height of the white-on-green legend.)

First, an all-uppercase drawing with a different set of destinations (Imperial County tends to be associated with all-uppercase G5, even on recent specs):



(Spacing is faked using 1" border, 6" uppercase legend, and 4.5" line spacing rather than 5" uppercase legend and 3.5" line spacing as in the original spec.)

Second, a mixed-case drawing with the canonical Roseville-Sacramento-Oakland triad rendered in "classic" 3:2 (i.e., Series D for capital letters):



(Spacing is faked using modern rules on interline spacing rather than the capital-letter-height spacing used on the actual spec.)

As an aside, to fake the 3:2 style you need to increase capital letter height 12.5%--which translates to 27-point if you use 24-point for the lowercase legend.  Also, if you look closely, you will see that the stroke width of the uppercase letters is not perfectly compatible with the stroke width of the lowercase letters.  My guess is that a "modified" version of Series D was used with the 3:2 style as opposed to straight FHWA Series D.  I did not have the time to attempt "modification" of the uppercase letters.  (I think "modification" may amount to a straight 10% addition to base stroke width for all alphabet series, but I have not checked this against a stroke-width-to-height table for the old Caltrans alphabets.)

[agentsteel53]

is that the correct corner rounding for classic mixed-case?  I had observed that the earlier signs had more square corners, including what appear to be completely square ones on the pre-1957 style "classic 3:2" overhead guide signs.  The side-of-road ones were always rounded, but just a bit less so on the earlier signs. 

and yeah, the Series D looks a bit off with the "classic 3:2" - at some point when I bother, I will make up AM, BM, CM, DM, FM fonts.  Not too difficult to do in a vector graphics program.  I would imagine DM is correct since the Roseville sign would have in-line button reflectors (holes drilled in sign, buttons inserted, held in place with backplates).

[J N Winkler]

I am pretty sure early overhead guide signs were unbordered also.  I didn't try to imitate corner rounding--there are actually multiple versions of the "Roseville 5," etc. version of G5 and one has unrounded corners.  I have not seen any drawings for the "Holtville 5," etc. version of G5 which has unrounded corners.

BTW, has anyone noticed how funereal these signs look?  There is a reason black hasn't persisted as a guide sign color . . .

Edit:  I fixed the mixed-case drawing by "modifying" the capital letters by hand.  I also re-kerned the bottom mileage.  (A not-very-well-known rule about design of mileage signs, which I often ignore when I am in a hurry, is that each individual digit is supposed to be on a common centerline with the digits immediately above and below, even if this means leaving more space between adjacent thin numbers like "1" than would otherwise be the case.  The G5 spec does not mention this rule, but it receives play in other design publications, including Chapter 7 of the UK Traffic Signs Manual.)

[agentsteel53]

I am pretty sure early overhead guide signs were unbordered also.

the two surviving 1949 examples in Oakland are unbordered, but with round corners, and a custom font.

I didn't try to imitate corner rounding--there are actually multiple versions of the "Roseville 5," etc. version of G5 and one has unrounded corners.  I have not seen any drawings for the "Holtville 5," etc. version of G5 which has unrounded corners.

great, too confusing!

BTW, has anyone noticed how funereal these signs look?  There is a reason black hasn't persisted as a guide sign color . . .

first time I ever thought of it that way.  I do prefer dark green to black, but I'll take black any day over the modern retroreflective light green.

[hm insulators]

The Four Level is also finished and the Hollywood Freeway (top level) also appears to be open to traffic, which would date it later than 1953.  This looks like the assembly that was mounted at the gore where traffic leaving the northbound Harbor Freeway split into streams for the Hollywood Freeway (on the left) and the Santa Ana Freeway (on the right).

gotcha - the gore point location makes sense given the arrow use.  

Here is another example I found of a white sign in a similar context.  Had forgotten about this one.

"Ramona Freeway." That goes way back! (It soon became the San Bernardino Freeway; I think long before it became a piece of I-10.)

Mod note: If you're only replying to one part of a long post, cut the rest out!

[agentsteel53]

there was also, apparently a Castro Freeway.  Anyone know where that one was?  I see it used as an example in the January 1, 1958 manual.

[J N Winkler]

My guess:  it is an old name for part of the MacArthur Freeway (I-580) and gets its name from the Castro Valley in the Bay Area.