That time an LA artist fixed a confusing downtown freeway sign

[skluth]

We've all seen freeway signs that were confusing and others which left out needed info. The original sign at the NB I-5 exit off the 110 in downtown LA twenty years ago caused many drivers to miss the left-hand exit immediately after the Figueroa St tunnels. An artist added the missing info as a guerilla public service. I'm new to So Cal so I'd never heard this story before. Article here.

There's also a video which shows the artist putting together the project and installing it on the freeway gantry.

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

[Rothman]

We've all seen freeway signs that were confusing and others which left out needed info. The original sign at the NB I-5 exit off the 110 in downtown LA twenty years ago caused many drivers to miss the left-hand exit immediately after the Figueroa St tunnels. An artist added the missing info as a guerilla public service. I'm new to So Cal so I'd never heard this story before. Article here.

There's also a video which shows the artist putting together the project and installing it on the freeway gantry.

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

It was pretty fun when it originally hit the news.  A true hero.

[ilpt4u]

When IDOT/ISTHA put up the I-355 sign at I-55 with "Suburbs"  as the Control, when already well within the Chicago Suburban Area - I had a desire to do something along these lines, but never got to this point, tho

Thankfully, IDOT/ISTHA did "Green Out"  that horrible Control choice, and now that sign sits controlless

I do love this guy's attention to detail and both book and field research to design and produce a sign that truly looks like it is a legit installation

[Scott5114]

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

agentsteel53 used to do something similar, although his projects (he referred to a successful install as "achieving an erection") were usually less to clear up confusing signage and more to sign routes he felt like shouldn't have been decommissioned. Usually, he made vintage shields for the task, which meant they got noticed and removed by the relevant authorities pretty quickly, though some of them stayed up for at least a few years.

At some point he got good enough making replica shields that he was able to turn a profit doing so, and I don't think he's achieved an erection since.

[SkyPesos]

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

agentsteel53 used to do something similar, although his projects (he referred to a successful install as "achieving an erection") were usually less to clear up confusing signage and more to sign routes he felt like shouldn't have been decommissioned. Usually, he made vintage shields for the task, which meant they got noticed and removed by the relevant authorities pretty quickly, though some of them stayed up for at least a few years.

At some point he got good enough making replica shields that he was able to turn a profit doing so, and I don't think he's achieved an erection since.

Lemme guess, the US 66 replica signs stayed up the longest.

[Scott5114]

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

agentsteel53 used to do something similar, although his projects (he referred to a successful install as "achieving an erection") were usually less to clear up confusing signage and more to sign routes he felt like shouldn't have been decommissioned. Usually, he made vintage shields for the task, which meant they got noticed and removed by the relevant authorities pretty quickly, though some of them stayed up for at least a few years.

At some point he got good enough making replica shields that he was able to turn a profit doing so, and I don't think he's achieved an erection since.

Lemme guess, the US 66 replica signs stayed up the longest.

No, I think the longest-lived was some random shield in a downtown area in Massachusetts that was no longer on a state highway. City just never noticed it was there, or if they did, never bothered to do anything about it.

I don't think he ever did anything with US-66. That's not his style (though of course they're a best seller for him now). He'd be more likely to achieve an erection on routes like US-99, US-466, US-6 south of Bishop, etc.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm curious if anyone knows of any similar efforts. Or what they think of this for that matter.

agentsteel53 used to do something similar, although his projects (he referred to a successful install as "achieving an erection") were usually less to clear up confusing signage and more to sign routes he felt like shouldn't have been decommissioned. Usually, he made vintage shields for the task, which meant they got noticed and removed by the relevant authorities pretty quickly, though some of them stayed up for at least a few years.

At some point he got good enough making replica shields that he was able to turn a profit doing so, and I don't think he's achieved an erection since.

Lemme guess, the US 66 replica signs stayed up the longest.

No, I think the longest-lived was some random shield in a downtown area in Massachusetts that was no longer on a state highway. City just never noticed it was there, or if they did, never bothered to do anything about it.

I don't think he ever did anything with US-66. That's not his style (though of course they're a best seller for him now). He'd be more likely to achieve an erection on routes like US-99, US-466, US-6 south of Bishop, etc.

He did this for sure with some segment of former US 80 in Texas.  No confirmation on how long the sign actually lasted. 

[ClassicHasClass]

I personally saw a US 395 (on Old Hwy 395 in northern San Diego county) and US 60 (on Riviera Drive in Blythe just west of the Colorado River), uh, erection of his. Both disappeared within weeks.

I actually bought Richard Ankrom's DVD as a thank you. It's on YouTube now, but for awhile it was the only way you could get the footage, and it was fantastic (even though officially I despise vandalism as a rule).

[Scott5114]

I actually bought Richard Ankrom's DVD as a thank you. It's on YouTube now, but for awhile it was the only way you could get the footage, and it was fantastic (even though officially I despise vandalism as a rule).

Applying a route shield to an existing highway sign might meet the legal definition of "vandalism", but in my mind, it very much falls outside the pragmatic definition of it. What Ankrom did added to what's already there with the same purpose in mind, whereas a tagger spraying weird spiky font gibberish is detracting from it.

Unless you spray "FART SMOCK" on a bridge abutment. Then you're cool.

[usends]

If my superpower was sign guerilla, these are the first signs I would fix.

[6a]

If there were ever a video that screams I WAS MADE IN THE 90s, this is the one.

[Max Rockatansky]

I kind of dig the weird Noir thing that was going on. 

[US 89]

agentsteel53 used to do something similar, although his projects (he referred to a successful install as "achieving an erection") were usually less to clear up confusing signage and more to sign routes he felt like shouldn't have been decommissioned. Usually, he made vintage shields for the task, which meant they got noticed and removed by the relevant authorities pretty quickly, though some of them stayed up for at least a few years.

He also did that as a way to get state-named interstate shields up in states that only installed neutered ones. In one case, he made a state-named I-84 shield and attached it to an I-15 trailblazer in Riverside UT. Since I-15 and 84 overlap through a lot of northern Utah, and SR 30 is in fact how you get to 84 (though indirect), nobody noticed and it stayed up for at least 5 years. It was up when GSV rolled through May 2008, and it lasted until UDOT replaced all the signs at that junction sometime between June 2013 and August 2015 (ironically by that point Utah had completely switched to state-named interstate shields).

I can't remember where it was, but I seem to remember him doing something similar in Boise.

[HighwayStar]

I think this hero has shown me how to fix the fake Baltimore control city problem....

[Henry]

I've always fantasized about greening out all the control states in Chicagoland and replacing them with the cities that most traffic would be destined for: Milwaukee instead of Wisconsin, Des Moines instead of Iowa, Toledo/Detroit instead of Indiana, etc.

To add to the conversation, I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

[SkyPesos]

I've always fantasized about greening out all the control states in Chicagoland and replacing them with the cities that most traffic would be destined for: Milwaukee instead of Wisconsin, Des Moines instead of Iowa, Toledo/Detroit instead of Indiana, etc.

On the contrary, we might see "Missouri"  as a control on SB I-55 in the Chicago area sometime in the future 

[kphoger]

I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

For some reason, companies (and government agencies) do tend to avoid hiring people who come up with illegal solutions to minor problems and go to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  Can't imagine why that is...

[HighwayStar]

I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

For some reason, companies (and government agencies) do tend to avoid hiring people who come up with illegal solutions to minor problems and go to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  Can't imagine why that is...

Mostly inept bureaucracy. What he did was Malum prohibitum, not Malum in se. It was not a "minor problem" for a freeway carrying that kind of traffic. Going to great lengths to not get caught is not particularly concerning since again it was only  Malum prohibitum.

[kphoger]

I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

For some reason, companies (and government agencies) do tend to avoid hiring people who come up with illegal solutions to minor problems and go to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  Can't imagine why that is...

Mostly inept bureaucracy. What he did was Malum prohibitum, not Malum in se. It was not a "minor problem" for a freeway carrying that kind of traffic. Going to great lengths to not get caught is not particularly concerning since again it was only  Malum prohibitum.

Are you saying DOTs would be perfectly happy to hire him?

[HighwayStar]

I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

For some reason, companies (and government agencies) do tend to avoid hiring people who come up with illegal solutions to minor problems and go to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  Can't imagine why that is...

Mostly inept bureaucracy. What he did was Malum prohibitum, not Malum in se. It was not a "minor problem" for a freeway carrying that kind of traffic. Going to great lengths to not get caught is not particularly concerning since again it was only  Malum prohibitum.

Are you saying DOTs would be perfectly happy to hire him?

No, because they are inept bureaucracies. I, as a taxpayer, would feel no worse, and possibly better, paying for this guy to be hired than many of the lazy, shiftless, worthless, shovel standers that we currently employ.

[Avalanchez71]

The install could have caused problems if it was not done correctly.  Just imagine the liability one could incur if the sign fell off and severed someone.

[kphoger]

I'm now a huge fan of this guy who made Caltrans wake up and realize its most critical error. Why they didn't hire him is certainly a mystery to me, because his work showed lots of attention to detail. Not to mention his clever disguise, from the hard hat to his businessman haircut, right down to the convincingly-decorated work truck that he was driving...

For some reason, companies (and government agencies) do tend to avoid hiring people who come up with illegal solutions to minor problems and go to great lengths to avoid getting caught.  Can't imagine why that is...

Mostly inept bureaucracy. What he did was Malum prohibitum, not Malum in se. It was not a "minor problem" for a freeway carrying that kind of traffic. Going to great lengths to not get caught is not particularly concerning since again it was only  Malum prohibitum.

Are you saying DOTs would be perfectly happy to hire him?

No, because they are inept bureaucracies. I, as a taxpayer, would feel no worse, and possibly better, paying for this guy to be hired than many of the lazy, shiftless, worthless, shovel standers that we currently employ.

OK.  So, other than the word "minor", nothing you said actually contradicted what I said.

[Max Rockatansky]

The install could have caused problems if it was not done correctly.  Just imagine the liability one could incur if the sign fell off and severed someone.

What would a 36x36 sheet aluminum shield be severing?  It would be hard envision someone even being impaled in a car given the shield would likely have to get through glass or a metal roof.  From what I recall he actually even used the correct number of rivets. 

[kphoger]

What would a 36x36 sheet aluminum shield be severing?

A motorcyclist.

[Max Rockatansky]

What would a 36x36 sheet aluminum shield be severing?

A motorcyclist.

Possible for impaling but still not likely to severe a limb.