Illuminated street name signs

[Brandon]

I meant there's no background light or street lights it just looks funny haha
ILL seems odd, it makes it sound sick. It's Ill. 

I zoomed in close enough with the camera to take them out of the pictures, and yeah, the "ILL" is a bit ill, but it is the older postal abbreviation for the state (as Cal was for California).

[Takumi]

Virginia Beach near NAS Oceana

[Takumi]

Well, since my last attempt at, you know, relevant content didn't fare so well... 

Chesapeake, VA

[bulkyorled]

I dunno whats with this horrible font from Pittsburgh, CA. Not plugged in anymore though.

I like the ones Virginia has. A lot of them seem to be in caps and few cities here have caps like that

[roadman65]

I dunno whats with this horrible font from Pittsburgh, CA. Not plugged in anymore though.

I like the ones Virginia has. A lot of them seem to be in caps and few cities here have caps like that

The fonts are inconsistent.  The "d" in Meadows is totally off!

[CentralCAroadgeek]

City of Bremerton, WA:


City of Tumwater, WA:

[txstateends]

In Irving, just outside Dallas, along Lake Carolyn Parkway:


The new DART Orange Line tracks run along the median of this street, in the upscale corporate neighborhood known as Las Colinas.  This is a thin LED-lit sign but looks like it could be just a fancy blade-shaped mast street sign.  I haven't been to other parts of Irving lately to see if this is rolling out to other streets or even major intersections elsewhere besides Las Colinas.

[Takumi]

Greenbelt, MD

[txstateends]

Well, since my last attempt at, you know, relevant content didn't fare so well... 

Chesapeake, VA

Interesting that the sign the side-street sees is mounted directly on the mast, while the one facing the main street is hanging --so both directions can see the same sign without having 2 different signs on the mast I guess?

[bulkyorled]

Most of them are like that here.

Ones at T Intersections dont get double sided ones unless there's a reason to see it from behind here just like that. Only here usually it'll get a black or white out panel so the light doesn't go through it. Although rare occasions there will be double sided ones like that which is obviously pointless.



Tumwater, WA ones are nice. I like the seal they've put on there. Not something I've seen before. Usually it's just a shadow of the city seal.
Bremerton's though, and i suppose even Chesapeake, VA's are basically identical to the ones that have been going up here. Even possibly the same exact ones Burbank is putting in.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Richmond, BC:


Redding, CA*:


* This is not an example of the illuminated street signs throughout Redding, which I unfortunately couldn't get a picture of

[bulkyorled]

green one has a crazy ass large font

[Dr Frankenstein]

I just came back from a trip to Virginia Beach. That city is full of illuminated street name signs, and it seems like they're adding more.

[thenetwork]

Colorado uses them quite a bit.  I've seen them in Denver, Grand Junction and selected other cities.

[vtk]

Grove City and Dublin, Ohio use self-illuminated signs at high-volume intersections.  Westerville too, but only the portion in Delaware County for some reason.  The problem I have with this type of sign is what local agencies tend to do with a long street name: they don't order a larger sign enclosure; they don't use a narrower font; they just squish Series E(M) to fit the hardware. 



necroquote:

Shitty picture for the 2nd one, its not really that bright of course.

Actually it is that bright.  The problem is the camera that took that photo, like most, isn't as good at recording high-dynamic-range images as the human eye. 

[roadfro]

Grove City and Dublin, Ohio use self-illuminated signs at high-volume intersections.  Westerville too, but only the portion in Delaware County for some reason.  The problem I have with this type of sign is what local agencies tend to do with a long street name: they don't order a larger sign enclosure; they don't use a narrower font; they just squish Series E(M) to fit the hardware. 

That's because the fixtures tend to come in standard sizes that will fit standard fluorescent bulb lengths--LED housings are likely based on these older sizings. Longer than that, it's either compress the legend (easy) or special order a custom housing (more expensive) to accommodate the long street name.

[vtk]

Grove City and Dublin, Ohio use self-illuminated signs at high-volume intersections.  Westerville too, but only the portion in Delaware County for some reason.  The problem I have with this type of sign is what local agencies tend to do with a long street name: they don't order a larger sign enclosure; they don't use a narrower font; they just squish Series E(M) to fit the hardware. 

That's because the fixtures tend to come in standard sizes that will fit standard fluorescent bulb lengths--LED housings are likely based on these older sizings. Longer than that, it's either compress the legend (easy) or special order a custom housing (more expensive) to accommodate the long street name.

I still say because I haven't seen a single one use (for example) Series C instead of a compressed Series E(M).

[Central Avenue]

Grove City and Dublin, Ohio use self-illuminated signs at high-volume intersections.  Westerville too, but only the portion in Delaware County for some reason.

IIRC there are some new ones in Franklin County now near the OH 3/I-270 interchange, though now that I think about it I'm not sure whether they technically fall within Westerville city limits.

[vtk]

Grove City and Dublin, Ohio use self-illuminated signs at high-volume intersections.  Westerville too, but only the portion in Delaware County for some reason.

IIRC there are some new ones in Franklin County now near the OH 3/I-270 interchange, though now that I think about it I'm not sure whether they technically fall within Westerville city limits.

If it's north of the interchange, yes; the interchange itself and OH 3 south of it are not in Westerville.  Ugh, now I'm reminded of Westerville's older street signs, where they have to use all the vertical space, in all-caps Series D*, squished horizontally to fit if necessary...

*Maybe it's Series C, but it definitely got squished way more often than necessary

[Central Avenue]

I had nothing better to do, so I went and looked. The sign I was thinking of is, oddly, at the interchange itself--there's an illuminated "SR 3" when you come off the ramp from I-270 WB.

It matches the style of Westerville's other illuminated signs, but as you noted, the interchange itself isn't in Westerville. But it doesn't match anything ODOT's done along that stretch of OH 3 either. Also, the Huber Village Blvd intersection (which was reconfigured at the same time as the interchange) has "classic" Westerville stretched-series-D blades, so if the one-off "SR 3" sign was somehow Westerville's doing, they apparently couldn't be bothered to spring for more of them.

Ugh, now I'm reminded of Westerville's older street signs, where they have to use all the vertical space, in all-caps Series D*, squished horizontally to fit if necessary...

Would you believe their new mixed-case ones are even worse? The stretched type persists, but now they suffer Oversized Caps Syndrome as well. They're among the worst street blades I have ever seen...I need to get pictures some time.

[vtk]

I had nothing better to do, so I went and looked. The sign I was thinking of is, oddly, at the interchange itself--there's an illuminated "SR 3" when you come off the ramp from I-270 WB.

It matches the style of Westerville's other illuminated signs, but as you noted, the interchange itself isn't in Westerville. But it doesn't match anything ODOT's done along that stretch of OH 3 either. Also, the Huber Village Blvd intersection (which was reconfigured at the same time as the interchange) has "classic" Westerville stretched-series-D blades, so if the one-off "SR 3" sign was somehow Westerville's doing, they apparently couldn't be bothered to spring for more of them.

I have two theories which could explain that.  First, while (IIRC) the reconstruction was an ODOT project, they probably took a lot of input from Westerville who went ahead and took responsibility for the street signs for the whole thing.  (ODOT doesn't do street blades as far as I know, and this would also explain why the south end of Rickenbacker Pkwy W has street blades that look like they were made by FCEO even though they are in Pickaway County...)  The second possibility is simply that Westerville annexed the stretch of OH 3 that was reconstructed. 

[Ned Weasel]

Since this is allowed under the thread exhumation policy, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Wichita's overhead street name signs yet:







I don't know of any new ones, but the old ones have been around as long as I can remember.  I'm pretty sure there used to be more of them than there are today, including some on Kellogg, pre-freeway.

Also, notice how Wichita tended to put them on just one side of the street, because they're double-sided, as can be seen in the third photo.  This was a common practice at intersections where they were used, although supplemental pole-mounted street blades were also sometimes used, as shown in the 13th and Woodlawn example (the first photo).

This kind of makes me want to go on a hunt to catch them all.

[WichitaRoads]

Since this is allowed under the thread exhumation policy, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Wichita's overhead street name signs yet:

...

I don't know of any new ones, but the old ones have been around as long as I can remember.  I'm pretty sure there used to be more of them than there are today, including some on Kellogg, pre-freeway.

Also, notice how Wichita tended to put them on just one side of the street, because they're double-sided, as can be seen in the third photo.  This was a common practice at intersections where they were used, although supplemental pole-mounted street blades were also sometimes used, as shown in the 13th and Woodlawn example (the first photo).

This kind of makes me want to go on a hunt to catch them all.

Catch em while you can... they are getting more and more rare. I, too, am shocked no one else thought of ICT. Hutchinson KS has them, as well...

A newer LED version - http://goo.gl/maps/GngQ9
The older type are almost all gone now.

ICTRds

[Scott5114]

Atchison has a few too.

[Ned Weasel]

Atchison has a few too.

Oh yeah, such as on this heavy-duty signal assembly: https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.560847,-95.127327&spn=0.002151,0.005284&t=k&z=18&layer=c&cbll=39.560848,-95.127162&panoid=_1gDAKXPvE6pn-vFjC5BXw&cbp=12,271.95,,0,-7.58

I remember noticing those a couple of times.