Caltrans External Exit Tabs & 240 Inch Tall Overhead Signs

[vdeane]

Honestly, it sometimes feels like CalTrans is trying to make every sign in the entire state have the same height!

[Scott5114]

The MUTCD doesn't really say anything about sign height and whether they can/should be the same.

It does, actually—

Standard:
For all freeway and expressway signs that do not have a standardized design, the message dimensions shall be determined first, and the outside sign dimensions secondarily.

If you are using the size of a gantry, or another sign on the gantry, to set the size of your sign panel and then fitting the message dimensions to that, you are doing it exactly backward from what the MUTCD specifies.

The problems with this approach are pretty well masked in Nevada because NDOT does seem to be better about choosing an appropriate sign height than Caltrans. That results in designs generally being less obviously wrong. Every once in a while we do end up with a similar mess, though.

[TheStranger]

External tab installations from this fall in San Francisco, at the Hospital Curve portion of US 101/Bayshore Freeway.

Southbound for Cesar Chavez (Army) Street/Exit 432
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7548305,-122.4031702,3a,75y,157.97h,93.49t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sP9caCqh5_dAYlidW03_XWQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-3.494152466196354%26panoid%3DP9caCqh5_dAYlidW03_XWQ%26yaw%3D157.9681657649382!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Northbound, for I-80 (Exit 433B) and 7th Street (I-80 Exit 1)
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7543147,-122.4031242,3a,75y,59.13h,97.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-7.601426395806456%26panoid%3DMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg%26yaw%3D59.128187631722284!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[SeriesE]

I'm kind of surprised that this one didn't get mentioned, but the 110 approaching the 105 interchange heading SB has a new gantry and signs that replaced the previous one sometime in 2023...

What's with D7 forgetting to put exit tabs on freeway-to-freeway interchanges?

[SeriesE]

I keep forgetting to add this abomination to this thread. This is a rare occasion where I think an old-fashioned internal tab would have actually looked better.

The designers haven't "figured out" how to mount external exit tabs that goes above the gantry to existing truss gantries

[andy3175]

I'm kind of surprised that this one didn't get mentioned, but the 110 approaching the 105 interchange heading SB has a new gantry and signs that replaced the previous one sometime in 2023...

What's with D7 forgetting to put exit tabs on freeway-to-freeway interchanges?

I don't know the answer, but I have noticed this too. Many freeway-to-freeway connections in Los Angeles/Ventura District 7 lack exit numbers, even when the guide signs have been replaced to the newer reflective signs. Maybe they are worried about driver confusion between the exit number and the route number? In Southern California, numbered routes are often freeways (not always, as there are several state routes on surface streets), but it is not like places like South Florida where arterials may be part of the state road system.

Adding a signed exit number is helpful to me: It helps to identify distance between major interchanges. Here, we have roughly 14 miles to the southern terminus of I-110. The exit tab for Imperial Highway tells us that. But it would be nice to have that for the I-105 exit, as there is not always an arterial exit near each freeway-to-freeway transition.

Other areas of California have the exit number for most freeway-to-freeway interchanges, but not all. For example, District 11 in San Diego does not have an exit number signed for the I-5/I-805 northern split, but they do have exit numbers for the remaining freeway exits going southbound: I-5/SR 52, I-5/I-8, I-5/SR 163, I-5/SR 15, I-5/SR 54, and I-5/SR 905. I've seen exit numbers at other key freeway interchanges elsewhere in the state, which tells me the District 7 approach is not statewide.

[SeriesE]

Other areas of California have the exit number for most freeway-to-freeway interchanges, but not all. For example, District 11 in San Diego does not have an exit number signed for the I-5/I-805 northern split, but they do have exit numbers for the remaining freeway exits going southbound: I-5/SR 52, I-5/I-8, I-5/SR 163, I-5/SR 15, I-5/SR 54, and I-5/SR 905. I've seen exit numbers at other key freeway interchanges elsewhere in the state, which tells me the District 7 approach is not statewide.

Also District 12 is good at putting exit numbers everywhere.

[freebrickproductions]

Northbound, for I-80 (Exit 433B) and 7th Street (I-80 Exit 1)
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7543147,-122.4031242,3a,75y,59.13h,97.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-7.601426395806456%26panoid%3DMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg%26yaw%3D59.128187631722284!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Interestingly, it doesn't appear that those signs are all the same height?

[TheStranger]

Northbound, for I-80 (Exit 433B) and 7th Street (I-80 Exit 1)
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7543147,-122.4031242,3a,75y,59.13h,97.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-7.601426395806456%26panoid%3DMYs60e8djE6AJWEEJt_aTg%26yaw%3D59.128187631722284!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Interestingly, it doesn't appear that those signs are all the same height?

My thought is that the height thing seems to be more important for signs on the classic overhead gantry setups (i.e. the weird left exit tab from the westbound Eastshore Freeway a few posts up from here) rather than say, affixing signs onto an existing overpass like this one.

That being said, the 2008-2024 internal tab configurations here in this San Francisco example I posted did have similarly heighted signs:

2008 (before the Exit 1 internal tab was added to the 7th Street sign) https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7542854,-122.4031533,3a,75y,35.77h,101.8t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sJN5XOKf4q7eEt9Jsw3KORg!2e0!5s20080501T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-11.80350399522662%26panoid%3DJN5XOKf4q7eEt9Jsw3KORg%26yaw%3D35.769287181347195!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwNy4wIKXMDSoKLDEwMDc5MjA2OUgBUAM%3D

August 2022 (the 7th Street sign now has the internal Exit 1 tab)
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.754336,-122.4031593,3a,75y,35.77h,101.8t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sqSKjqV0wfphq0P8gb4M8YA!2e0!5s20220801T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-11.80350399522662%26panoid%3DqSKjqV0wfphq0P8gb4M8YA%26yaw%3D35.769287181347195!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwNy4wIKXMDSoKLDEwMDc5MjA2OUgBUAM%3D

Looking at Google Street View history, the last photo they have of the internal-tab signage grouping at Hospital Curve was in mid-2024, with the overpass being worked on in April and May 2025, before this October 2025 view of the new installations.

[Bobby5280]

If you are using the size of a gantry, or another sign on the gantry, to set the size of your sign panel and then fitting the message dimensions to that, you are doing it exactly backward from what the MUTCD specifies.

The backwards practice is what happens when bean counters get to make the design decisions.

Here's one where they decided they needed to add a third listing to an existing modest-sized green overhead sign. You can look through the previous street view imagery dates to see the original design in 2022 versus the shit revision they applied in 2024. Just gotta love artificially squeezed Series Gothic type:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2778749,-115.2765567,3a,75y,90.53h,91.24t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w!2e0!5s20240901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-1.2399267351107568%26panoid%3D7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w%26yaw%3D90.52534479112991!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[vdeane]

I don't know the answer, but I have noticed this too. Many freeway-to-freeway connections in Los Angeles/Ventura District 7 lack exit numbers, even when the guide signs have been replaced to the newer reflective signs. Maybe they are worried about driver confusion between the exit number and the route number? In Southern California, numbered routes are often freeways (not always, as there are several state routes on surface streets), but it is not like places like South Florida where arterials may be part of the state road system.

District 7 must be going through the "exit numbers are only for surface roads" that some places went through decades ago.  This is evident some places in NY as well - I-787 is exit 6A from I-90 because it wasn't originally numbered (Region 1 was consistently inconsistent about it - I-87 and I-90 both have exit 1 for each other, and I-87 reserved exit 3 for I-687, while I-90 didn't have a number for I-687 and exit 5A ended up being used when that interchange was repurposed), while I-88 still doesn't have an exit number from I-81.

[Scott5114]

If you are using the size of a gantry, or another sign on the gantry, to set the size of your sign panel and then fitting the message dimensions to that, you are doing it exactly backward from what the MUTCD specifies.

The backwards practice is what happens when bean counters get to make the design decisions.

Here's one where they decided they needed to add a third listing to an existing modest-sized green overhead sign. You can look through the previous street view imagery dates to see the original design in 2022 versus the shit revision they applied in 2024. Just gotta love artificially squeezed Series Gothic type:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2778749,-115.2765567,3a,75y,90.53h,91.24t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w!2e0!5s20240901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-1.2399267351107568%26panoid%3D7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w%26yaw%3D90.52534479112991!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This has less to do with money—Clark County has gobs and gobs of it, so it tends to do things like put entirely unnecessary gantries on interchange ramps (look at the west and south sides of CC-215 if you don't believe me)—and more to do with contractor laziness.

If you really want to see the world series of stretch and squash fonts, check out Spring Mountain Road. Someone at Clark County really has a bee in their bonnet about not abbreviating "Mountain" and the illuminated sign housings only come in so many sizes, so...

[SeriesE]

If you really want to see the world series of stretch and squash fonts, check out Spring Mountain Road. Someone at Clark County really has a bee in their bonnet about not abbreviating "Mountain" and the illuminated sign housings only come in so many sizes, so...

I checked out the signs on Street View and I don't think I've seen two intersections with the same layout. 

[Bobby5280]

This has less to do with money—Clark County has gobs and gobs of it, so it tends to do things like put entirely unnecessary gantries on interchange ramps (look at the west and south sides of CC-215 if you don't believe me)—and more to do with contractor laziness.

I think the problem is a manager somewhere decided to pinch pennies rather than anyone in the sign production/installation chain being lazy.

If Clark County has gobs and gobs of money why wouldn't they spend some extra money on ordering a new replacement sign panel that was large enough to hold three destination listings? The sign's truss structure clearly has plenty of available empty space that it could hold a sign panel several feet wider and a couple or so feet taller. They wouldn't need to have the "Sky Pointe" listing running nearly edge to edge on the panel, much less the horrible "Reno/Las Vegas" listing that's severely squeezed.

Now, I do agree they're going a bit overboard with a good number of those overhead green signs in Las Vegas. Not every exit ramp or gore point needs an overhead big green sign, especially if it's a interchange with a regular surface street. Most freeways elsewhere just use cheaper ground-mounted signs on the exit ramps to surface streets.

[kphoger]

Corner cutting is also a very common problem in the commercial sign industry.

I like the pun! 

[Scott5114]

If Clark County has gobs and gobs of money why wouldn't they spend some extra money on ordering a new replacement sign panel that was large enough to hold three destination listings? The sign's truss structure clearly has plenty of available empty space that it could hold a sign panel several feet wider and a couple or so feet taller. They wouldn't need to have the "Sky Pointe" listing running nearly edge to edge on the panel, much less the horrible "Reno/Las Vegas" listing that's severely squeezed.

I think it's mostly that they were more focused on building out the stack interchange there and the signage was an afterthought.

[Revive 755]

This has less to do with money—Clark County has gobs and gobs of it, so it tends to do things like put entirely unnecessary gantries on interchange ramps (look at the west and south sides of CC-215 if you don't believe me)—and more to do with contractor laziness.

I'm not believing you on the"unnecessary gantries" part.  The siging on CC 215 doesn't look much worse than how Missouri handles some of the ramps around St. Louis (Example 1.  Example 2.) or a lot of the siging along IL 390 in Chicagoland Example A. Example B.)

[Scott5114]

This has less to do with money—Clark County has gobs and gobs of it, so it tends to do things like put entirely unnecessary gantries on interchange ramps (look at the west and south sides of CC-215 if you don't believe me)—and more to do with contractor laziness.

I'm not believing you on the"unnecessary gantries" part.  The siging on CC 215 doesn't look much worse than how Missouri handles some of the ramps around St. Louis (Example 1.  Example 2.) or a lot of the siging along IL 390 in Chicagoland Example A. Example B.)

Does every single on-ramp really need an overhead sign telling you the name of the frontage road?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome, but if the county were really hurting for cash for their sign budget, this sort of stuff would have been the first to go.

[Bobby5280]

Yeah, the expensive overhead sign gantries on every little thing shows off quite a lot of money-spending extravagance. And that also makes me even more annoyed at that one sign goof I spotlighted. If they're going to spend all that extra money on overhead sign structures when a far less costly ground-mounted sign would suffice then why can't they replace a really small sign panel when they want to revise the messages listed on that sign? It's very contradictory.

[Scott5114]

Yeah, the expensive overhead sign gantries on every little thing shows off quite a lot of money-spending extravagance. And that also makes me even more annoyed at that one sign goof I spotlighted. If they're going to spend all that extra money on overhead sign structures when a far less costly ground-mounted sign would suffice then why can't they replace a really small sign panel when they want to revise the messages listed on that sign? It's very contradictory.

Which is why I think it's just that the project was so focused on getting the stack interchange built that whoever was doing the planning simply wasn't thinking about the signs too much. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets replaced fairly soon, anyhow; some of the other signs original to that stretch of 215 are starting to show their age (and are likewise not very good). I would expect that a bulk replacement project might happen in that area within the next few years, perhaps as part of the handoff from the county to NDOT that's been expected for a while. (In fact, if they knew the whole panel was already scheduled to be replaced in the medium term future, that might explain why they just did a lazy patch job.)

By the way...most of these overhead signs are still illuminated, too!

[roadfro]

If you are using the size of a gantry, or another sign on the gantry, to set the size of your sign panel and then fitting the message dimensions to that, you are doing it exactly backward from what the MUTCD specifies.

The backwards practice is what happens when bean counters get to make the design decisions.

Here's one where they decided they needed to add a third listing to an existing modest-sized green overhead sign. You can look through the previous street view imagery dates to see the original design in 2022 versus the shit revision they applied in 2024. Just gotta love artificially squeezed Series Gothic type:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2778749,-115.2765567,3a,75y,90.53h,91.24t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w!2e0!5s20240901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-1.2399267351107568%26panoid%3D7b8PJxvIv07MILHm3EjV-w%26yaw%3D90.52534479112991!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This has less to do with money—Clark County has gobs and gobs of it, so it tends to do things like put entirely unnecessary gantries on interchange ramps (look at the west and south sides of CC-215 if you don't believe me)—and more to do with contractor laziness.

If Clark County has gobs and gobs of money why wouldn't they spend some extra money on ordering a new replacement sign panel that was large enough to hold three destination listings? The sign's truss structure clearly has plenty of available empty space that it could hold a sign panel several feet wider and a couple or so feet taller. They wouldn't need to have the "Sky Pointe" listing running nearly edge to edge on the panel, much less the horrible "Reno/Las Vegas" listing that's severely squeezed.

I think it's mostly that they were more focused on building out the stack interchange there and the signage was an afterthought.

I wouldn't say Clark County has gobs and gobs of money...but it has helped having a county fuel tax referendum approved by the voters in 1990 that was extended (and increased?) sometime in the 2000s which brought in a good chunk of money for regional transportation needs, and a significant portion of that was allocated towards 215 Beltway projects. That tax has since expired and/or been replaced by a indexed fuel tax also dedicated for similar purposes.

But all that is irrelevant to the discussion of the awful sign at hand, because the recent multi-phase US 95/CC 215 Centennial Bowl interchange construction was an NDOT project, not a Clark County project...

In any case, there is no reason that sign, in either its original or modified configurations, should ever have been that narrow.

[vdeane]

Yeah, the expensive overhead sign gantries on every little thing shows off quite a lot of money-spending extravagance. And that also makes me even more annoyed at that one sign goof I spotlighted. If they're going to spend all that extra money on overhead sign structures when a far less costly ground-mounted sign would suffice then why can't they replace a really small sign panel when they want to revise the messages listed on that sign? It's very contradictory.

Which is why I think it's just that the project was so focused on getting the stack interchange built that whoever was doing the planning simply wasn't thinking about the signs too much. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets replaced fairly soon, anyhow; some of the other signs original to that stretch of 215 are starting to show their age (and are likewise not very good). I would expect that a bulk replacement project might happen in that area within the next few years, perhaps as part of the handoff from the county to NDOT that's been expected for a while. (In fact, if they knew the whole panel was already scheduled to be replaced in the medium term future, that might explain why they just did a lazy patch job.)

By the way...most of these overhead signs are still illuminated, too!

What's really weird is that the sign clearly has room for I-11 and was designed for both directions from the get-go... so why wasn't it designed for Sky Pointe?

[Scott5114]

Yeah, the expensive overhead sign gantries on every little thing shows off quite a lot of money-spending extravagance. And that also makes me even more annoyed at that one sign goof I spotlighted. If they're going to spend all that extra money on overhead sign structures when a far less costly ground-mounted sign would suffice then why can't they replace a really small sign panel when they want to revise the messages listed on that sign? It's very contradictory.

Which is why I think it's just that the project was so focused on getting the stack interchange built that whoever was doing the planning simply wasn't thinking about the signs too much. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets replaced fairly soon, anyhow; some of the other signs original to that stretch of 215 are starting to show their age (and are likewise not very good). I would expect that a bulk replacement project might happen in that area within the next few years, perhaps as part of the handoff from the county to NDOT that's been expected for a while. (In fact, if they knew the whole panel was already scheduled to be replaced in the medium term future, that might explain why they just did a lazy patch job.)

By the way...most of these overhead signs are still illuminated, too!

What's really weird is that the sign clearly has room for I-11 and was designed for both directions from the get-go... so why wasn't it designed for Sky Pointe?

Sky Pointe is a street in a neighborhood of the same name that I believe didn't exist when the interchange was being planned.

[SeriesE]

Sky Pointe is a street in a neighborhood of the same name that I believe didn't exist when the interchange was being planned.

Not sure if I agree with sharing the same ramp as a freeway-to-freeway interchange like this, but I'm not a civil engineer.

Dropping the suffix certainly made it more confusing whether "Sky Pointe" was a street name or a destination.

[roadfro]

Yeah, the expensive overhead sign gantries on every little thing shows off quite a lot of money-spending extravagance. And that also makes me even more annoyed at that one sign goof I spotlighted. If they're going to spend all that extra money on overhead sign structures when a far less costly ground-mounted sign would suffice then why can't they replace a really small sign panel when they want to revise the messages listed on that sign? It's very contradictory.

Which is why I think it's just that the project was so focused on getting the stack interchange built that whoever was doing the planning simply wasn't thinking about the signs too much. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets replaced fairly soon, anyhow; some of the other signs original to that stretch of 215 are starting to show their age (and are likewise not very good). I would expect that a bulk replacement project might happen in that area within the next few years, perhaps as part of the handoff from the county to NDOT that's been expected for a while. (In fact, if they knew the whole panel was already scheduled to be replaced in the medium term future, that might explain why they just did a lazy patch job.)

By the way...most of these overhead signs are still illuminated, too!

What's really weird is that the sign clearly has room for I-11 and was designed for both directions from the get-go... so why wasn't it designed for Sky Pointe?

Sky Pointe is a street in a neighborhood of the same name that I believe didn't exist when the interchange was being planned.

Sky Pointe Dr is the name of the two-way frontage road on the east side of US 95, and has been around for quite a while—parts of it are still maintained by NDOT as a frontage road (FR CL 24). It used to be much more continuous from Ann Road to the northern limits of Las Vegas at Moccasin Road, but residential developments on the east side have cannibalized it over the years, such that Sky Pointe is no longer is a reasonable frontage route beyond Elkhorn Rd (Side note: Oso Blanca Road is the companion frontage road on the west side of US 95, FR CL 23. Not sure how or why Oso Blanca has managed to stay more or less in tact north of the 215 over the years but Sky Pointe has not.)

But suffice to say that Sky Pointe Dr has been around long enough to have been considered in the Centennial Bowl planning. Any plans or discussion on the final beltway build-out I've seen over the years, the 215 having some kind of interchange with Sky Pointe as part of the final system interchange design has been part of the plans. And according to a preliminary interchange design PDF that was made available online as far back as mid-2014 (when I saved a copy of it), the concept of CC-215 EB access to US 95 and Sky Pointe being from a single combined exit had been around back then. 

So the confusing element with that sign is that they did not account for the Sky Pointe Dr destination message with the original sign (which did account for future I-11 and the future northbound ramp). I can only assume that they thought signing for Sky Pointe might be handled by a separate post-mounted "Sky Pointe Dr Next Exit" sign that never came to be. 

Not sure if I agree with sharing the same ramp as a freeway-to-freeway interchange like this, but I'm not a civil engineer.

It happens in lots of places. Sometimes you just don't have the space to make separate ramps. It happens in lots of places. In fact, another example is the Martin L King Blvd interchange that is right in the Spaghetti Bowl in downtown Las Vegas. MLK has access to/from all directions of both I-11/US 95 and I-15, but only one of the four off ramps to MLK is its own separate exit (I-11/US 95 NB) while the other three split from the freeway-to-freeway ramps.