The Worst of Road Signs

[Brandon]

I'm not fond of the layouts of some Caltrans BGSes. It breaks the fundamental rules of shield placement and text alignment per national MUTCD requirements, not what's in Caltrans traffic control device manuals.

You lost me there.  Are you saying California is "doing it wrong" because route shields are placed next to the legend instead of being placed above the legend?  If so, I don't see what the big deal is...

I don't see what the advantage of the bottom sign has over the top sign.  If anything, the top sign has an advantage because it makes more efficient use of the sign panel.

CalTrans is hardly the only DOT to use shields mounted to the side of the text.  It is also very common for MDOT (Michigan) to do so as well.  IDOT (Illinois) uses them on occasion, but very rarely.

Hancock, MI, off-freeway example:


A rare Illinois one on the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway:

[okroads]

The cities are off-center with a non-standard font size, plus the "BUSINESS" banner is above both U.S. highways when it should only be above the U.S. 40 shield:


DSC03239 by okroads, on Flickr

[okroads]

A trifecta of signs, all for the same exit on I-135/U.S. 81 South in Kansas:


DSC03316 by okroads, on Flickr


DSC03318 by okroads, on Flickr


DSC03319 by okroads, on Flickr

[Jim]

I don't have specific pictures, but I nominate most of the new Clearview signs on I-95 and nearby in Maryland for this thread.  Just drove up through there in the middle of the night (hence the lack of pictures) and it was one example after another of bad.  Mostly mismatched font sizes and shield sizes, and odd layouts attempting to show multiple items on a single sign.  Will have to grab some pictures of the worst on the next daylight ride through there.

[Sanctimoniously]

Looks like someone forgot to hit Shift.

[WichitaRoads]

A trifecta of signs, all for the same exit on I-135/U.S. 81 South in Kansas:


DSC03316 by okroads, on Flickr


DSC03318 by okroads, on Flickr


DSC03319 by okroads, on Flickr

Yes, yes, yes! These ALWAYS drive me crazy when I drive through there! ARGH!

ICTRds

[codyg1985]

When you are out of "Exit 2" gore signs, just slap a 2 somewhere on a generic Exit sign:



This is I-565 westbound at Exit 2 for Mooresville Road near Decatur, AL.

[AsphaltPlanet]

This sign was erected by the 407 ETR Consortium several years after neighbouring Highway 7 was transferred to the region of York.  Fortunately, this sign has been removed and replaced with more standard signage.

[agentsteel53]

This sign was erected by the 407 ETR Consortium several years after neighbouring Highway 7 was transferred to the region of York.  Fortunately, this sign has been removed and replaced with more standard signage.

I'm not too familiar with Ontario signage ... what's wrong with it?  can you show an example of a correct one?

[AsphaltPlanet]

This sign was erected by the 407 ETR Consortium several years after neighbouring Highway 7 was transferred to the region of York.  Fortunately, this sign has been removed and replaced with more standard signage.

I'm not too familiar with Ontario signage ... what's wrong with it?  can you show an example of a correct one?

Fair enough.  This is what the sign was replaced with.  The reference to Highway 7 was removed, as traffic bound for Highway 7 was (and still is) directed to use the preceding exit (Leslie Street).


This is more typical of Ontario signage.  (The pre-advanced for the 404 is 407 signage though).  The worst of signage above has a mishapen provincial highway shield, undersized text size on the exit tab, and is laid out poorly.  The worst of sign should read "{7} via \8/ Woodbine Avenue" but doesn't really.

[vtk]

When you are out of "Exit 2" gore signs, just slap a 2 somewhere on a generic Exit sign:



This is I-565 westbound at Exit 2 for Mooresville Road near Decatur, AL.

ODOT has done that a few times, usually squeezing a number to the left of the arrow.

[formulanone]

^ I-95 in South Florida has a few of those "exit number exponents" (exitponents?) recently.

Oh wait, that one's a subscript.

[vtk]

I think that makes it a molecular forumula.

[OracleUsr]

I-440 in Raleigh, NC, has one of those, too at Exit 12.

[Duke87]

Does this qualify as a Frankensign?

[kphoger]

Does that mean they were hoping for a speed limit of 40, but couldn't manage it?

[PurdueBill]

ODOT has done that a few times, usually squeezing a number to the left of the arrow.

My favorite ODOT one of those was the (in)famous one on I-70 WB just west of Columbus for Exit 93 with different-sized numerals in button copy.  I won't deep link but the roadfan.com page has a pic. 

Sadly, the sign was replaced nearly 10 years ago along with all the button copy from just west of 315 all the way out to Hilliard-Rome--but at least it was not replaced with Clearview.

[Central Avenue]

Looks like someone forgot to hit Shift.

I don't think I'd say one simple typo really qualifies as the worst of road signs.

I mean, it's certainly bad, but there's still soooo much further down it could go.

[Michael]

it's like building a car missing the right front wheel and then coming up with an elaborate system of workarounds just to make it drivable. 

Red Green has a solution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gtr4iem-fE

This isn't near as bad as Oklahoma's Hookd' on Phonics signs, but here we have a new Clearview sign where the capital letters are way too large (or the lowercase letters are too small) Apologies for the phone camera and the picture being dark.



Also the exit tab in the middle is wrong. It should only mention Exit 19B.

This is the first time I can say that I like Clearview.



Here's my latest Street View find.  It's on Newport Road in Camillus approaching West Genesee Street (Old NY 5).  Since Newport Road is county maintained, I'm assuming this is from Onondaga County's DPW.

[Billy F 1988]

Betchya this one qualifies:
http://goo.gl/maps/Zahvr

BTW, this is the approach to Toole Avenue and West Broadway in Missoula. Appologies if the clairty from Google Street View isn't that good. It's like that throughout most of the routes the GSV vehicle traveled.

[1995hoo]

Seen this afternoon on eastbound I-66. Very weird way to sign the exit number and I can't ever recall seeing anything similar elsewhere in Virginia.




At the next exit to the east, odd sign placement:

[amroad17]

Virginia used to be very good at sign placement, specs, and looks.  Not any more!

[Billy F 1988]

Did they just take a page out of Burnout's book in placing the exit gore in that odd location than where it is supposed to be?

[HTM Duke]

Seen this afternoon on eastbound I-66. Very weird way to sign the exit number and I can't ever recall seeing anything similar elsewhere in Virginia.
<cut>

I remember that particular sign going up not long after I started attending JMU.  Guess it's been up for ~5 years already.

Speaking of JMU, here's one outside of Harrisonburg:
http://goo.gl/maps/YJcOk

This remains the only time I've seen an exit signed with a trailblazer, an exit tab, and a waypoint sign.

Closer to home, some not-so-goodies from Alexandria, VA:

http://goo.gl/maps/0onKg - eastbound VA-7 @ Bradlee Shopping Center
The only time I've seen a Virginia primary route shield rendered as a polygon.  The edges look a bit softer on GMSV, but in person it's definitely composed of line segments.

http://goo.gl/maps/WVsOJ - westbound VA-7 east of N Van Dorn St
And across and down the street is this I-395 shield.  I remember seeing an I-95 counterpart to it somewhere in Alexandria, but I'm unable to place it right now.

[NE2]

some of those caps are D, others are EM.  the "Pasadena" is an obvious blackout there.  this may as well be the "worst of road signs" even though the historical value of that photo is immense.

Pre-patching:

from http://fan.tcm.com/_The-LA-freeway-in-1956-from-34A-Day-In-The-Life-Of-Donald-Duck34-Disneyland-TV-episode/photo/12665903/66470.html