Best and worst Control City

[tdindy88]

Of course, I-74's Ronald Reagan Pkwy exit has Crawfordsville as a control city. Evansville (not Memphis) is the control city on the I-69 SR 68 interchange, and Evansville metro is a lot smaller than South Bend/Elkhart so maybe INDOT is starting something similar to what Illinois does.
[/quote]

I think the Ronald Reagan Parkway example is more of a fluke than anything else, likely the work of the contractor on the project, even the signs have a slightly different font from any other off the highway. All other exits on 74 West have Peoria and Indianapolis as control cities, and unless INDOT starts changing all of them to mention Crawfordsville I will continue to regard the Reagan Pkwy exit as an exception more than a rule. As for I-69, I will be looking to see what control cities are used once larger portions of the highway are opened. I would assume that Evansville will be signed as the southbound control city throughout the state, with Memphis being signed south of there. My question would be what control city would be signed to the north. I would doubt that Petersburg will stay as a control, which then would leave the question: will it be Washington, Crane, Bloomington, or Indianapolis. Will there be a day when I see Evansville signed in Marion County and Indianapolis in Vanderburgh? Though this thought is probably for another day and thread.

[mukade]

I think the Ronald Reagan Parkway example is more of a fluke than anything else, likely the work of the contractor on the project, even the signs have a slightly different font from any other off the highway. All other exits on 74 West have Peoria and Indianapolis as control cities, and unless INDOT starts changing all of them to mention Crawfordsville I will continue to regard the Reagan Pkwy exit as an exception more than a rule. As for I-69, I will be looking to see what control cities are used once larger portions of the highway are opened. I would assume that Evansville will be signed as the southbound control city throughout the state, with Memphis being signed south of there. My question would be what control city would be signed to the north. I would doubt that Petersburg will stay as a control, which then would leave the question: will it be Washington, Crane, Bloomington, or Indianapolis. Will there be a day when I see Evansville signed in Marion County and Indianapolis in Vanderburgh? Though this thought is probably for another day and thread.

I agree Evansville will and should be the control city from I-64 to Indy, but South Bend should be the control city on I-80/I-90 because it is a bigger metro area (third biggest in state, I believe).

As for the I-74 sign, the state has pretty detailed project plans that you can view online. That leads me to believe that city came directly from INDOT plans. I have viewed some of the online signage for the projects underway. Because some are a lot different than normal (US 31 Kokomo, for example), maybe the contracted engineering firms are responsible for the differences.

[1995hoo]

There is a new pull-through sign on I-95 in Virginia at Exit 161, saw it for the first time last night but was unable to take a picture because I had just driven in from Florida and it was just before midnight and I was tired, but I thought it was pretty well-executed in terms of giving guidance to people not from Northern Virginia. The sign used to read I-95 North with a control city of Washington. Now it's a very big two-panel BGS (all in Clearview, for those who care). The left panel is the standard pull-through sign for I-95 North but lists control cities of Baltimore and New York City (top to bottom in that order). The right panel then says "Washington Follow I-395 North" and gives the distance to I-395, which is 8 or 9 miles from that sign.

Some people might object to putting New York City as a control city on a sign in Virginia–shades of the famous signs in Petersburg that list Miami and Atlanta–but I thought it wasn't a bad idea at all in terms of providing some level of clarification to people who do not go through the Springfield Interchange very often. I suppose one could quibble that New York might best be moved to an auxiliary sign with Baltimore left as the control city; I wouldn't argue on that point, but I don't mind seeing New York on there either. People getting lost at Springfield (and making U-turns at the Van Dorn Street exit near where I live) are a perpetual plague.

Exhuming this discussion because yesterday I finally got a picture of the sign described in my prior post quoted above. We went down to Woodbridge to play golf, then put gas in the car because it's 20¢ a gallon cheaper there and hit Wegmans, and on the way home I took the opportunity to get a picture of the sign. To me this is an example of where a re-thought sign makes the information a lot more useful to people who don't drive the road on a regular basis.

First, the old sign (obviously courtesy of Google Street View):




Next, the new one, which went up sometime earlier this year:




I find it interesting that the new sign says "New York City" rather than just "New York," as the latter is the more common usage along I-95 from what I've observed over the years. (I suppose "New York" might be seen as ambiguous as to city versus state, although in my mind since the city is part of the state, it would be equally accurate.)

[architect77]

The new sign looks awful on so many levels. I loved how the old sign reminded me that "Washington"  not "Washington, D.C," is how the city should be referred to, just like all other cities.

New York shouldn't have "City", because that is practically slang. It's New York, NY, without any mention of "City".

[flowmotion]

I like the concept of the sign, although I don't think it's necessary to show diverging control cities 8 miles prior to the junction. Maybe 2-3 miles ahead. Otherwise, "I-95 North / Washington / Baltimore" would have been fine in this location.

[1995hoo]

The thing I don't like is that the word "Use" is in the small caps–compare it to the word "North" on the other side of the I-395 shield. The "Use" is in what would be lower-case letters if the small caps were converted to standard type. To me that looks wrong.

I'm not sure I follow architect77's point about "Washington" versus "DC" on the old sign. The new sign doesn't use "DC" anywhere either. (In terms of how the city is referred to, the majority of people who live around here call it "DC" and seldom say "Washington" in any form, although certainly on highway signs "DC" alone would never work. I'd support adding the "DC" on the signs if I thought there was an ambiguity, but the State of Washington is a long way away and the town of Washington, VA, commonly called "Little Washington" after the famous Inn located there, is nowhere near I-95.)

I'm guessing–and this is just a guess–that one reason for the 8-mile advance notice is that it's in advance of the Springfield Interchange, a major divergence point as you head up I-95 in this area, and so they want people to start paying attention to the signage in advance. Obeying the signage for the proper lane is probably more important there than in just about any other interchange I've ever used because if you make a mistake, you can't easily fix it without driving three to five miles to the next exit to turn around. There is another sign a few miles to the north that says "I-95 North/NJ–NY/4 Miles/Use Left Lanes." (I'd normally prefer "Keep Left" over "Use Left Lanes" because we have too many left-lane hogs as it is, but in this case using the two left lanes at the split is very important so the wording makes sense.)

[mtantillo]

Disagree with the equally accurate statement...if your destination in New York State is anything west of I-81, you would definitely be going the wrong way by stayin on I-95 north in Springfield.  Its not like I-90 west (Mass Pike) out of Boston where New York works fine, since you can get to the entire state by either going west on I-84 or staying on I-90. 

[vtk]

The thing I don't like is that the word "Use" is in the small caps–compare it to the word "North" on the other side of the I-395 shield. The "Use" is in what would be lower-case letters if the small caps were converted to standard type. To me that looks wrong.

Your interpretation is not quite correct.  Technically, the direction word isn't "North" formatted with small-caps type; it's actually "NORTH" with a larger first letter.  In that light, "USE" is formatted exactly the same, except it wasn't given a larger first letter because the MUTCD doesn't call for it. 

[1995hoo]

Disagree with the equally accurate statement...if your destination in New York State is anything west of I-81, you would definitely be going the wrong way by stayin on I-95 north in Springfield.  Its not like I-90 west (Mass Pike) out of Boston where New York works fine, since you can get to the entire state by either going west on I-84 or staying on I-90.  

I think you misunderstood. I didn't mean "equally accurate" as in "best way to any destination in New York State." That would be absurd. What I meant was that a sign saying just "New York" would be equally accurate regardless of whether you interpreted it as meaning the city or the state because the city is part of the state. That is, I-95 takes you to New York State. It also takes you to New York City. Therefore, either interpretation is "equally accurate."

[1995hoo]

The thing I don't like is that the word "Use" is in the small caps–compare it to the word "North" on the other side of the I-395 shield. The "Use" is in what would be lower-case letters if the small caps were converted to standard type. To me that looks wrong.

Your interpretation is not quite correct.  Technically, the direction word isn't "North" formatted with small-caps type; it's actually "NORTH" with a larger first letter.  In that light, "USE" is formatted exactly the same, except it wasn't given a larger first letter because the MUTCD doesn't call for it.  

Either way, it's an example of blind obedience to the book looking dumb. I like the sign as a whole, but not that one aspect of it.

[vtk]

Your interpretation is not quite correct.  Technically, the direction word isn't "North" formatted with small-caps type; it's actually "NORTH" with a larger first letter.  In that light, "USE" is formatted exactly the same, except it wasn't given a larger first letter because the MUTCD doesn't call for it. 

Either way, it's an example of blind obedience to the book looking dumb. I like the sign as a whole, but not that one aspect of it.

I wouldn't say it looks "dumb".  I might have a slight preference for not making the N bigger, but then again I think I have a slight preference to put that whole line in D-modified button copy.  But as far as shiny new Clearview signs go, I think that sign is about as close to perfect as I can imagine.  We'll just have to recognize our differing tastes, I suppose.

[1995hoo]

Yeah, if the only complaint is that one letter is a different size, that's a really minor gripe!