The Worst of Road Signs

[jakeroot]

I had a feeling that someone would mention that. Louisiana's (mis)use of Clearview in route shields has been brought up in this thread previously.
...
(For the record, I like Clearview and most of Louisiana's use of it.)

I agree jbnv. I think Clearview looks quite nice down in LA. I'll be visiting New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles, and I'm looking forward to seeing the use of Clearview.

Granted, I've spent a lot of my life in British Columbia where Clearview is everywhere, so I'm decently used to it. But, in this context, it's pretty cool, since much of their Clearview goes against the rules, unlike BC where Clearview anywhere is fine.

EDIT: Though, I must admit, I'm far more interested in seeing the three-level stacked roundabout near the Airport in New Orleans.

[odditude]

Well, we thought DOTD had learned their lesson about putting Clearview numerals in route shields... This went up a few weeks ago. *sigh*

Post the worst, most ineptly put together pieces of crap in your state. Not just "oh, it's in Clearview",

hah, you expect people to read.

the new overhead sign at exit 56 on NJ I-295 NB is horrific - not because it's clearview, but because the designer apparently thinks padding is only for push-up bras. everything is packed so tightly together the sign is impossible to read at a glance.

the legend is US 206 / NJ 68 / NJ TPK - Rising Sun Rd / Joint Base MDL, with much larger text and yet a noticeably smaller sign panel than the previous one. it's almost like a caricature of the "DO NOT DO THIS" example in the MUTCD (the one that shows the Scaggsville exit panel on I-95 in MD).

[hbelkins]

"Oh, it's in Clearview" wouldn't necessarily categorize a sign as "worst of," but "the route marker numbers are in Clearview" probably should -- if it offends you that much. (Clearview route numbers don't bother me too badly but they certainly stand out since you don't see them all that often.)

[jbnv]

"Oh, it's in Clearview" wouldn't necessarily categorize a sign as "worst of," but "the route marker numbers are in Clearview" probably should -- if it offends you that much. (Clearview route numbers don't bother me too badly but they certainly stand out since you don't see them all that often.)

I'm not even offended by every so-called "incorrect" use of Clearview in route markers. The numerals in the wider variants aren't too bad. My criticism of the sign I posted above stems from multiple facts:

1. DOTD should be quite aware of what Clearview numerals in the Louisiana BGS shield look like by now.

2. DOTD should also have figured out by now how to put numerals within an outline of Louisiana in a layout that looks good. What we get is analogous to the roads that they sign--hit or miss in quality, many showing the consequences of neglect.

3. The numerals on this sign are narrower than they need to be. And frankly, I can't figure out any way they could have kerned them that would make them look good.

4. The new sign is on my route home from work, which means I get to look at it 5 times a week.

[Brandon]

Found this on Facebook as well, some rather poor shields in Cullman, AL:

I believe this is what the term "kill it with fire" was made for.

[exit322]

Found this on Facebook as well, some rather poor shields in Cullman, AL:

Franklin Gothic?

BTW: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=2821.msg2043893#msg2043893

I actually kinda like that font on the shields.

[Android]

Yeah, I don't mind it either - the signs are certainly legible enough.  True, it's definitely wrong, but it works for me. 

[jakeroot]

I would be fine with Franklin Gothic if they used a lighter weight. AFAICT, the weight used here seems too thick for distant legibility (though I'd have to see it in real life to confirm my suspicions).

EDIT: I'll be in Cullman next week. I'll do some studies and I'll report back. I'll be with my mom, who's basically blind, so I'll compare her opinion with mine and I'll come to a consensus some how.

[US 41]

https://www.google.com/maps/@27.29889,-99.589271,3a,75y,306.86h,98.16t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s8BRjDpkzrXDRj5qfk2Rvrw!2e0

This is so bad it's actually kind of funny.

[Brandon]

https://www.google.com/maps/@27.29889,-99.589271,3a,75y,306.86h,98.16t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s8BRjDpkzrXDRj5qfk2Rvrw!2e0

This is so bad it's actually kind of funny.

It's classic Mexico.  In the US or Canada, it's a bad sign, but for Mexico, it's not half bad.

[1995hoo]

I am sure I have posted this before, but I can't seem to find it. I got a better picture of the current sign assembly this morning while sitting in slow traffic.

The following sign assembly used to appear over southbound I-395. The sign on the right was a bit strange-looking.



The two signs over the main lanes were replaced by the signs seen below, one of the more hideous implementations of Clearview I've ever seen (plus the spaces in "3A" and "3B" are too wide). The Interstate shields on the left-most sign were greened out due to new ramps providing direct access from the reversible lanes, thus eliminating the need to exit ahead.




So the entire gantry, except for the support column to the right of the highway, was removed last year as part of the HO/T lane signage project. But they needed to have advance signs for the interchange, so they put these up last fall and there has been no indication of whether or when they might post real signs in their place. As ugly as the Clearview shown above is, I think these signs are worse!

[JoePCool14]

I'd imagine those were temporary, it'd be ridiculous for a DOT to leave that like that. I'd hope...

[1995hoo]

I'd imagine those were temporary, it'd be ridiculous for a DOT to leave that like that. I'd hope...

I'd hope so, although they've been there for close to six months now!

[J N Winkler]

Worst in a different way: this is what blind MUTCD compliance produces. It would be much more sensical to have one sign that says 170th Ave / Cunningham, but no, "A city name and street name on the same sign should be avoided."

Upstream of that, there's another sign with two more destinations on it. So, what, you want a sign with "Cunningham / Turon / St Leo / 170th Avenue" on it? Because that's the logical outcome of this line of thought. As currently designed, I see nothing wrong with the approach KDOT went with. The exit has the main name "170th Avenue", and then there's 3 destinations you can use that road to reach. The message is broken up into easily-processable chunks so someone doesn't run over a duck while they're busy reading. Sucks for KDOT that they have to spend more on poles, but them's the breaks.

KDOT's typical practice is to use a sign like this anyway to refer to a range of exits. "Kansas City, next 12 exits", and Kansas City gets no further mention on any of them.

Cunningham is right there. St. Leo and Turon are not. If 170th Avenue was K-170, it would be K-170 / Cunningham, and the St. Leo / Turon sign would still be separate.

I am coming to this discussion late, but it is my opinion that there is no completely satisfactory solution to this situation.  Here are the plausible options (EDS = exit direction sign):

(1)  170th Ave. on the EDS, Cunningham on the supplementary

(2)  Cunningham on the EDS, 170th Ave. on a supplementary

(3)  170th Ave. and Cunningham both on the EDS (deprecated by the MUTCD since 1988 [?] and not frequently used by KDOT, though there have been exceptions, notably signs for Gorham/176th St. and Dorrance/200th Blvd. installed ~2012 as part of KDOT project 106 KA-1892-01, which was a sign refurbishment on I-70 in western Kansas)

NE2 is correct that KDOT's normal practice is to use a city name, not a road name, when the surface highway at the exit is a state route.  MUTCD message loading limits effectively forbid putting both Turon and St. Leo on the action signs.

I have some experience with the US 54 corridor since it is "in my patch," so to speak.  In its recent activity in the US 54 corridor in south-central Kansas (both reconstruction and new construction), KDOT has been favoring road grid names on action signs at the expense of town names--in other words, option (1) over option (2).  I do not know for sure its motivation for doing so, but suspect it has to do with Enhanced 911, and possibly a sense that the road grid names are used more for navigation than the town names.

The signs NE2 pointed out are part of an almost brand-new US 54 freeway bypass of Cunningham which was advertised for construction in 2010 (under KDOT project number 54-48 K-8244-04) and completed around 2012.  (I drove it on my way to Colorado and New Mexico for a mini-vacation in August and September of that year.  It has also been blasted by a very conservative Wichita-area blogger as an example of government waste.)  The signs are as shown in the construction plans and correspond to option (1).

However, there are sections of US 54 west of Wichita and east of Augusta that have been freeway for far longer.  US 54 in western Sedgwick and eastern Kingman Counties was built as a freeway in the early 1970's, running from just east of Garden Plain to just west of Pretty Prairie.  Most of its length in Sedgwick County was reconstructed around 2003, at which point the signs were replaced.  The original signing corresponded to option (2), except that supplementary signs with street names were not (as far as I remember) provided.  The signs installed after the reconstruction followed option (1).  For example, at the exit three miles west of Garden Plain, 343rd West replaced St. Joe on the EDS.  At the closely spaced exits near Cheney (one formerly signed for the town, the other for K-251/Cheney Lake State Park), 383rd West replaced Cheney, while 391st West replaced Cheney Lake State Park.  391st West is still signed for K-251, presumably because a state park does not count as a "town" for signing purposes.  (The EDS used to have a brown background, but now has the standard green.)  Cheney and St. Joe have both been demoted to supplementary signs.

The signing at Garden Plain (295th West) seems still to follow option (1), but this is only because K-163 still overlapped 295th West between US 54 and the town in 2003; it was not decommissioned until ten years later.  This means the convention of route shield plus city name on EDS still applied when the signs were designed, and for the time being KDOT has opted to remove the K-163 shields instead of changing the existing text legend or adding new signs.

The first exit in Kingman County (westbound) is for NE 150 Ave. but is still signed for the small hamlet of Mount Vernon, presumably because it was not involved in the 2003 reconstruction.  However, all of the new signs for US 54 exits in Kingman County that I have seen in the field, on StreetView, or in construction plans use grid road names, subject to the usual exceptions such as route shield plus city name at interchanges with state highways.  The Pretty Prairie exit is now signed for NE 40 Ave.

Meanwhile, east of Wichita, the US 54 freeway between Augusta and the US 77 El Dorado split still uses town names instead of grid road names and so corresponds to option (2).  As an example, the exit for SW Haverhill Rd. is signed for Haverhill and Smileyberg.

This is not necessarily good for relatability since both Haverhill and Smileyberg are too small to be found directly through Google Maps--if you do a search for either, you get facilities located in them rather than the towns themselves (e.g. "Smileyberg Transmissions").

Returning to Kingman and western Sedgwick Counties, Google Maps can find Garden Plain and Cheney easily since both are incorporated municipalities with declared boundaries, but a search for St. Joe turns up the completely unrelated town of St. Joseph well over a hundred miles away.  I am semi-local and even I cannot tell you where Mount Vernon is (Google Maps drops me on Mount Vernon Ave. in Wichita, which is a "half" section line road between Harry and Pawnee).

In the case of the Cunningham bypass, I would personally have preferred to see Cunningham instead of 170th Ave. on the EDS.  But this is because I am not really local and am usually just passing through, so Cunningham means more to me than street grid position, and I also remember the town from going through it many times in the past.  One could make a case that the signing offers the greatest benefit to the motoring public if it does not cater specifically to people in my boat.

[SignGeek101]

Control cities are smaller than the street, and all caps. The text is somewhat squeezed into a small area, more greenspace should be allotted. I won't mention the Clearview because that is standard here, and should not be factored into "worst".

http://goo.gl/maps/FyXrU

[vtk]

I like that style of EXIT ONLY panel though‥

[jakeroot]

I like that style of EXIT ONLY panel though‥

Reminds me mainly of Texas but also a little of California. I also like it.

[Pete from Boston]

Fitchburg, Mass.  Who's in charge these days?  This looks like the signmaker was drunk.

[freebrickproductions]

Found this on Facebook. It's located in Toms River, NJ apparently.

This is also for an out of service line.

[cjk374]

Found this on Facebook. It's located in Toms River, NJ apparently.

This is also for an out of service line.

What in the bloody blue hell is ...I mean, how....that's just gross!   

[Roadrunner75]

Found this on Facebook. It's located in Toms River, NJ apparently.

Yup - it does indeed exist:
https://www.google.com/maps?ll=39.979568,-74.254682&spn=0.000004,0.00327&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=39.979569,-74.255194&panoid=CL-NsurFFW4JlmcjKkPU9w&cbp=12,37.34,,0,2.42

[SignGeek101]

Found this on Facebook. It's located in Toms River, NJ apparently.

Yup - it does indeed exist:
https://www.google.com/maps?ll=39.979568,-74.254682&spn=0.000004,0.00327&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=39.979569,-74.255194&panoid=CL-NsurFFW4JlmcjKkPU9w&cbp=12,37.34,,0,2.42

The street also only has a single yellow line. I thought that was against the MUTCD, unless I'm mistaken.

[jakeroot]

Found this on Facebook. It's located in Toms River, NJ apparently.

Yup - it does indeed exist:
https://www.google.com/maps?ll=39.979568,-74.254682&spn=0.000004,0.00327&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=39.979569,-74.255194&panoid=CL-NsurFFW4JlmcjKkPU9w&cbp=12,37.34,,0,2.42

The street also only has a single yellow line. I thought that was against the MUTCD, unless I'm mistaken.

That's just old pavement markings. Here's a street in Tacoma, Washington with a white central line:

[corco]

Here's a nice bit of WSDOT incompetence.

In August 2007, I photographed most of the length of I-5 in the state. At I-5 and SR 6, this sign was present at the exit, missing the arrow.



Fast forward to April 2015 and I have a chance to drive the highway again. This is definitely a new sign (note the lettering for WEST), but geez... They took the old bad sign design, added an arrow in a random spot, and then put "historic districts" over the Exit 77 banner for some reason.

[briantroutman]

Just noticed this from a link in another thread–which is wrong in so many ways.