Grade your state's DOT

[UptownRoadGeek]

I live in Louisiana. I would give LA DODT a c or c-

Reasons:

I think their construction/maintenance methods are substandard.

Transportation policy is too influenced by political interest.

Almost non-existent interest public transportation.

Mark

Louisiana: A B. The highways can be terrible, but the state legislature is passing a rural roads act to get the less-traveled highways back in shape. The newer roads are smooth and bump-free, especially I-55 out of Hammond north to Mississippi. It feels weird to leave the state and the roads get bumpy automatically. Signing is still an issue, and too many highways exist, but that's politics, not transportation.

With Louisiana, and I'm sure any other state, it all depends on what part of the state you're in and which district of the department you're in. I've noticed that the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles area districts seem to do a lot better than other parts of the state that I've been to.

[Zmapper]

CDOT is a mixed bag to me. Their work on highways outside of the cities is as good as any other state I guess, but CDOT can drag their heels at times working with the cities.

For one, they carry over the rural highway mentality to the city streets, where larger signs, narrow or non-existent sidewalks, 55mph speed limits, and oversized traffic signals may not be appropriate.

Their typical urban bridge standard is a 6' sidewalk next to a 6' bike lane (more like a gravel-and-glass filled shoulder), next to multiple wide lanes of fast moving traffic. Would you feel comfortable walking or bicycling right next to 55mph traffic? Considering that highway interchanges are often the only way between two communities, the nearest alternative may be miles away.

Overall, they do a fairly good job at highway maintenance and operations, but the capital projects division needs to have some serious reform.

[mukade]

Indiana

Website-C....no long term plans online.

Long term and short term project studies are online. Detailed plans are online for projects that are being let or have been let. I would give them an A- instead of an A because of lack of consistency on project web sites.

Forward Thinking-A....pushing hard for I-69, I-67 and I-265.

I am not sure about any I-67, but INDOT has selected to implement improvements in all areas of the state. I-69 is currently getting more funding than one might expect, but that makes up for a huge gap in the Indiana highways system so I don't think many people complain about it. INDOT seems to be doing major rebuilds before a highway becomes too dangerous or too congested. Much better than most states. Major rebuilds include building the roadbed from the ground up rebuilding bridges, and rebuilding/redesigning interchanges). Also an A here.

Quality of Workmanship-D....have noticed some bad work being done by Contractors and INDOT won't or can't correct.
[/quote]
Well, yeah. I have seen some poor quality work in Indiana, but that is true everywhere. In general, it seems about average. When they find bad work, they fix it just like happened on US 24 in Fort Wayne. I will give them overall a B to B- depending on which part of the state.

Cheapness-C.........INDOT cheeped on I-64 road rework between Corydon and Georgetown by doing only the mainline and leaving the shoulders alone. Not as cheap as Missouri with it's wasteful thin lift overlay (pavement that works maybe 2-3 years and then has to be replaced........ie money throw away).

What you are talking about is common. In one cycle they don't pave the shoulders when they resurface the mainline. Generally, I am OK with that unless the shoulders are in very bad shape. Doing this allows highways to be resurfaced more often which is very important in the north. So is that smart management or cutting corners? Balancing that with the very nice, high quality new highways, I would give INDOT either an A- or B+. After the Major Moves money is gone, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Other Pros for INDOT:
- Proactively widens bottleneck areas (interchange merges and cross roads near freeways)
- Seems to replace traffic signs every ten years or less
- Good lighting in place at interchanges and key intersections
- INDOT is pretty good about not wasting money on silly things. For example nothing remotely like Michigan's and Illinois' boondoggles of replacing all BGS with Clearview ones. They seem to be very pragmatic.
- Speaking of Clearview.... no Clearview (subjective)
- Things are relatively consistent around the state
- Subsidize key local projects like Keystone Pkwy.
- Major Moves included a requirement to improve the Toll Road so that benefit occurred in addition to all the new and improved highways
- Very efficient addressing problems. When Sherman Minton bridge crack was found, proper action was taken and a good solution was implemented ahead of schedule and with reasonable cost.
Other Cons:
- They stll have some very sub-standard highways where traffic volumes are low. Some of these roads have no shoulders and utility poles right by the traffic lanes.
- Indiana still has some nightmarish bypasses with way too many stoplights (US 30 and US 31)
- Similarly, roads like US 41 through central Terre Haute are horrible. They also need a bypass there (SR 641 is addressing the problem south of I-70)
- Sometimes they wait too long to rebuild - for example, I-70 west of Indy

In the last ten years, INDOT has built around 40 new interchanges and at least 150 miles of new freeways if you include what is currently under construction. These project include the I-69 extension, US 24, US 31, and SR 641. The new terrain SR 25 and US 231 expressway also added 60 miles of superior roads. Major highways such as I-70 in Indy, the west and north legs of I-465 in Indy, the Borman (I-80/I-94) in NW Indiana, and I-69 in Fort Wayne have been or are being rebuilt. And that is just a partial list.

Overall I would give them a B- but could be a B plus with elimination of a few areas.

Overall, I would give them an A, but recognize that Major Moves is a big part of it. They executed on the opportunity in very short order and stayed focused on the mission. I am not aware of any corruption despite all the dollars.

[KEK Inc.]

Washington:  A-  Good Maintenance (apart from Seattle), Good Road design, nice street hardware, minimal sign goofs).

Oregon:  D crappy street hardware, sign goof galore, maintenance sub-par, mediocre traffic engineering design

California:  B Fantastic Road design, picky signs, poor maintenance

[Ian]

PennDOT: C. Okay roads (not great), but it takes an unusually long time to get something done. Their freeway signs leave something to be desired, but I enjoy their other signs, mostly because of the PennDOT symbol. One other issue I have with PennDOT is the lack of passing zones on rural 2 lane roads where they might be appropriate.

DelDOT: B-. Decent roads and signage, despite congestion being an issue. Horribly timed traffic signals though.

NJDOT: B+. Mile markers are very consistent (especially on non-freeways), plus their traffic signals are nice too with the truss arms. My qualms with NJDOT pretty much equal to what Steve said in his post.

NYSDOT: C. Very clean freeway signs for the most part (I'm a sucker for the rounded corners), plus their smaller signs and traffic signals look nice. That being said, the condition of a lot of the roads in the state are very rough and unpleasant.

[Scott5114]

Missouri: MoDOT gets a B. Signage is good; in all cases I have seen it is consistent, well designed, and clear. Build quality is mostly good, at least on the freeways. I cannot speak to the experiences of a metro Kansas City/St Louis driver, but living in Springfield they seemed to take care of things fairly well. MoDOT does try to stay ahead of the curve in rural areas as well, as we have seen with the I-49 upgrades and Route 13 bypasses (Humansville area, Brighton) put in over the past years. MoDOT is one of the few road agencies I have interacted with myself, and their staff was helpful and courteous.

Wow, my wife and my sister would so disagree with you on this.  Many primary state highways and most secondary state highways are serpentine roads with no shoulders and inadequate signage (specifically advisory speeds).

I don't think it is fair to look at the lettered routes too closely when assigning MoDOT an overall grade. For one thing, almost all of the lettered routes would be county roads in any of the surrounding states. MoDOT shouldn't even be responsible for them. Secondly, the lettered routes are appropriately the lowest rung on the totem pole in the MoDOT and treated as such. Most of them have a very limited, local scope and the average person traveling from town to town will not strictly need to use them at any point.

I don't consider advisory speeds useful, since they are generally gratuitously underposted. I guess they give you a general indication of how severe a curve is, but really bad curves should get the sharp turn sign anyway, which is sufficient to get my attention. Thus I didn't even notice that MoDOT doesn't post them.

With the serpentine-ness of the primary routes, a lot of times the issue is simply that Missouri got fucked over by its own geography; my time in Missouri was spent in the Ozarks region, so I was no stranger to curvy roads. Any road can be straightened given enough cash, but a cost-benefit analysis has to be done to determine whether that makes sense–is it going to benefit enough people to be worth spending the money? There are some roads that are underpowered compared to their usage level (I can think of Route 5 between Camdenton and Lebanon as well as Route 13 south of Springfield as being particularly hellish) but MoDOT at least seems interested in fixing the problem (the 'shared four lane' experiment was done to the aforementioned section of Route 5; Route 13 itself is an improvement on the old alignment, which became Route 413) or providing an alternate route (there is no real reason to use existing Route 13 if you're not visiting Nixa; you can use Route 65 instead).

I would give TDOT a higher grade than D on signs. In my experience (which consists of just I-40) they were rather consistent with their large guide signs and the layout was generally excellent. I imagine things might not be as well kept on the back roads, though.

However, Texas does a great job with Clearview.

The TDOT I mentioned was Tennessee; Texas DOT is TxDOT. Though I do agree; as Clearview implementations go, Texas knows what it's doing. There are many ways to screw up Clearview, and Oklahoma seems to have found most of them.

[kphoger]

Missouri: MoDOT gets a B. Signage is good; in all cases I have seen it is consistent, well designed, and clear. Build quality is mostly good, at least on the freeways. I cannot speak to the experiences of a metro Kansas City/St Louis driver, but living in Springfield they seemed to take care of things fairly well. MoDOT does try to stay ahead of the curve in rural areas as well, as we have seen with the I-49 upgrades and Route 13 bypasses (Humansville area, Brighton) put in over the past years. MoDOT is one of the few road agencies I have interacted with myself, and their staff was helpful and courteous.

Wow, my wife and my sister would so disagree with you on this.  Many primary state highways and most secondary state highways are serpentine roads with no shoulders and inadequate signage (specifically advisory speeds).

I don't think it is fair to look at the lettered routes too closely when assigning MoDOT an overall grade. For one thing, almost all of the lettered routes would be county roads in any of the surrounding states. MoDOT shouldn't even be responsible for them. Secondly, the lettered routes are appropriately the lowest rung on the totem pole in the MoDOT and treated as such. Most of them have a very limited, local scope and the average person traveling from town to town will not strictly need to use them at any point.

I considered that before posting.  But then I look at Minnesota, and I see a world of difference.  In Minnesota, their county state-aid highways (at least in the parts of Minnesota I go to) are in just as good condition as the primary network; many have hard shoulders, all have more than adequate signage.  In Missouri, I've been on too many numbered state routes that are really no better than their lettered cousins.

I do realize it costs more per mile to build a road in Missouri than it does in Minnesota, of course

[vdeane]

NYSDOT: C. Very clean freeway signs for the most part (I'm a sucker for the rounded corners), plus their smaller signs and traffic signals look nice. That being said, the condition of a lot of the roads in the state are very rough and unpleasant.

NYSDOT has funding issues similar to NJDOT.

NYSTA: B; they keep the road nice and smooth, signage is mostly good, but they don't sign county lines and the newer clearview signage is ugly.  Some major projects (like the Williamsville toll barrier project) take a long time to happen, though.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Caltrans
Signage - A

• Lots of button copy kept
• Uniform sign heights
• CA-style exit tabs

Pavement - B-

• Lots of freeways (Like 101 in San Jose) with new asphalt
• Others (Like I-5 in the Central Valley) with terrible asphalt/concrete

Mast Arms/Gantries - A

• Very well designed, looks aesthetically appealing
• Safe during earthquakes

These are all the reasons I can think of right now. Overall, i guess Caltrans would get an A-.

Other than maybe District 5, I don't see any of them getting above a "C".

Being from District 5, I'm wondering how this is.

[roadman65]

FL gets a B+ in my opinion, but needs FDOT to take control over traffic signals.  Many are county and municipally maintained and treat highways like streets.  You  have no organization of signal timings this way and you have a major thorofare waiting two or three light changes on a not so busy side road.

NJ gets a B+ as I see cause even though they have exellent traffic signals so that you can see when behind a truck and the jughandle system works well keeping all slow traffic to the side, the signs could be updated some.  How about control cities at entrance ramps on I-280 and I-287 in most places?  Then they need freeway type mileage signs instead of all capital letter lgses on interstates. Plus, control cities for travelers in consistency with the assigned control cities instead of "Ewing" for I-295 when "Trenton" is that route's primary control point for NB ramps.  On I-78 use "I-287" instead of "Bedminster" on its mileage sign considering that there is no assigned exit named for that township.   Route junctions have gotten better with directional shielding added, but trailblazers need to be added for NJ 27 in Elizabeth northbound at NJ 28 on Cherry Street.  A right turn NJ 27 and a NJ 28 West shield is needed there!  Then at its northenr terminus with NJ 21 in  Newark has NO SIGNAGE depicting at all the two routes junctioning.

LA gets a C cause it needs dirt fills at grade separations instead of the bridge itself coming off the ground.  Look at US 11 crossing I-10 near New Orleans on street view and you will see what I mean. LA 23 needs shielding, in where it has none south of Gretna.  Granted it intersects no adjoining route numbers, still confirmation shields would be nice as well as an end assembly in Venice.  It could use more noted control points on interstates and I-49 could use completing along US 90.  It does have good mile signs and I like its mast arms that use collars instead of bolts (except at double mast arm assemblies) and it is the only state other than NY to use green signal heads instead of yellow and black like all the others use.

PennDOT needs improvement, a C, cause many roadways need widening and pot holes filled.  Breezewood needs the bypass ramps at the place where I-70 crosses itself.  Some signage needs updating and control cities need to be changed in some places ie "Trenton" on US 1 in Oxford Valley for I-95 North when the city is dead ahead a few miles and "Harrisburg" for I-81 North in Enola on US 11 & 15 considering its location at that point to Harrisburg Proper.  How about Harrisburg for I-81 North from the MD Line? Then you have speed limits that need to be upgraded like I-78 from Allentown to Hamburg being raised to 65 along with the Oxford bypass of US 1.  Local road control cities could be added instead of the traditional one only on interstate exit guides and in some places a point that actually exists.  There is no city called "Pocono" anywhere in PA, yet the exit guide for PA 940 uses that on I-380 near Mount Pocono.

[Scott5114]

Missouri: MoDOT gets a B. Signage is good; in all cases I have seen it is consistent, well designed, and clear. Build quality is mostly good, at least on the freeways. I cannot speak to the experiences of a metro Kansas City/St Louis driver, but living in Springfield they seemed to take care of things fairly well. MoDOT does try to stay ahead of the curve in rural areas as well, as we have seen with the I-49 upgrades and Route 13 bypasses (Humansville area, Brighton) put in over the past years. MoDOT is one of the few road agencies I have interacted with myself, and their staff was helpful and courteous.

Wow, my wife and my sister would so disagree with you on this.  Many primary state highways and most secondary state highways are serpentine roads with no shoulders and inadequate signage (specifically advisory speeds).

I don't think it is fair to look at the lettered routes too closely when assigning MoDOT an overall grade. For one thing, almost all of the lettered routes would be county roads in any of the surrounding states. MoDOT shouldn't even be responsible for them. Secondly, the lettered routes are appropriately the lowest rung on the totem pole in the MoDOT and treated as such. Most of them have a very limited, local scope and the average person traveling from town to town will not strictly need to use them at any point.

I considered that before posting.  But then I look at Minnesota, and I see a world of difference.  In Minnesota, their county state-aid highways (at least in the parts of Minnesota I go to) are in just as good condition as the primary network; many have hard shoulders, all have more than adequate signage.  In Missouri, I've been on too many numbered state routes that are really no better than their lettered cousins.

I do realize it costs more per mile to build a road in Missouri than it does in Minnesota, of course

But the counties are paying part of the tab there, no? That's not the case in Missouri. Lettered routes are 100% state maintained.

If you grab a map of Missouri you can also see tons of lettered routes that spur off into the hinterlands, never encountering so much as a town or another state route of any sort. Mn/DOT probably doesn't have to pay for these sorts of roads.

[ftballfan]

Michigan gets a C.

Positives: Exit numbers on most freeways, I-75 being 4x4 around Bay City and between Saginaw and Flint, M-6, I-196 east of US-131, most freeways not dropping speed in/near a major city

Negatives: US-31 and US-127 and their gaps in freeway which won't be filled for years if ever (two in the case of US-31), some freeways being too narrow (US-23 south of Brighton, I-94 [which should be 3x3 or more statewide]), lack of a 60-65 mph speed limit on rural two-lane roads (most U.P. roads, M-115, M-55, M-37, M-72 for example)

[SSOWorld]

I'm going to give WisDOT a B+.  Though the pavements on Interstates can be shoddy at best, not all of them are bad.  pretty much every state highway is decent but there are exceptions.

Signage is good - though from a roadgeek's perspective, not enough button copy

For IowaDOT - I'm going to hand them a B+ as well.  Roads are good, but for the surface highways - those sign salad arrows are awful looking.  Nice vintage Interstate shield design though.

For IDOT (or IDiOT if you prefer) - B- (leaving Chicago out of it).  (NOT including the ISTHA) Roads are decent quality - especially the freeways, I still have yet to get familiar with central and southern IL though.  For the north - I've found enough unrepaired potholes. For ISTHA - A.  They put the tolls to good use by keeping the roads well maintained - but the capacity still needs some work.

[Occidental Tourist]

Being from District 5, I'm wondering how this is.

Less than frequent use of greenout, and not much evidence of designing the signing to fit the existing infrastructure rather than designing it to conform to the MUTCD and Cal. Manual.  But both of these may be less a function of department competence than a function of the District's more rural nature, with accordingly fewer opportunities to engage in either bad practice.

[kphoger]

I'm going to give WisDOT a B+.  Though the pavements on Interstates can be shoddy at best, not all of them are bad.  pretty much every state highway is decent but there are exceptions.

Signage is good - though from a roadgeek's perspective, not enough button copy

For IowaDOT - I'm going to hand them a B+ as well.  Roads are good, but for the surface highways - those sign salad arrows are awful looking.  Nice vintage Interstate shield design though.

For IDOT (or IDiOT if you prefer) - B- (leaving Chicago out of it).  (NOT including the ISTHA) Roads are decent quality - especially the freeways, I still have yet to get familiar with central and southern IL though.  For the north - I've found enough unrepaired potholes. For ISTHA - A.  They put the tolls to good use by keeping the roads well maintained - but the capacity still needs some work.

As for southern Illinois, I would give Illinois quite a good grade.  Even what most people would never know are state highways are actually secondary state highways; these are usually in just as good condition as the primaries.  I used to drive all over southern Illinois in a bouncy Isuzu box truck, and was impressed overall.

[brownpelican]

I'd give LaDOTD a B-.
I cannot remember when the last time things have been this busy when it comes to road construction/repair. Yes, the state has a HUGE backlog of roadwork, but I give Gov. Jindal some credit for throwing more money at our roads - including rural highways - than the previous three governors combined (Who'd have thought the ground level of I-55 would EVER get fixed?).

The Miss. DOT gets a A.
They are light years ahead of Louisiana when it comes to taking care of their roads...and their roads LAST a lot longer than Louisiana's too.

[blawp]

CalTrans - A+

I agree with this poster.

[agentsteel53]

CalTrans - A+

I agree with this poster.

what happened to you?  the sudden drop in the quality of your posts is alarming.

[kkt]

I'm not sure whether we're grading the department or the state legislature or the state economy.  California has some very nice newer routes, but neglects maintenance shamefully.  The pavement on I-80 near Fairfield before it was repaved was so bad that we had to slow down to 45 to keep from being bounced out of our lane, there were protest signs along the road saying "Pave I-80".  CalTrans fault?  Legislature's?  Economy's? 

Similarly, the east span of the Bay Bridge.  A perfectly adequate retrofitted or replacement bridge could have been built in a couple of years.  Instead, we're coming up on a quarter century since the Loma Prieta quake and the replacement isn't done yet.  It's also costing about 20X what a simple replacement should have cost.  But it was Jerry Brown's idea to have a "signature span", as if the Bay Area weren't abundantly provided with landmark bridges already, so it's not totally CalTrans' fault.

[agentsteel53]

But it was Jerry Brown's idea to have a "signature span",

the first two signature spans were built between 1933 and 1937, so even that doesn't require 20 years.

[kkt]

But it was Jerry Brown's idea to have a "signature span",

the first two signature spans were built between 1933 and 1937, so even that doesn't require 20 years.

I don't think the Golden Gate or Bay bridges are signature spans.  They were made using the least expensive type of bridge for the site.  A signature span is going out of its way to do something more expensive than it has to be just to be showy.  The Golden Gate has some decorative touches in the lighting and design of the columns, but a suspension bridge is the most cost effective type of bridge that could be made on that site.

[J N Winkler]

I don't think the Golden Gate or Bay bridges are signature spans.  They were made using the least expensive type of bridge for the site.  A signature span is going out of its way to do something more expensive than it has to be just to be showy.  The Golden Gate has some decorative touches in the lighting and design of the columns, but a suspension bridge is the most cost effective type of bridge that could be made on that site.

By that criterion, I am not convinced that the self-anchored suspension span of the Bay Bridge is a "signature span" either.  I am aware that it was developed as an alternative to retrofitting the existing cantilevered truss (an option which Caltrans at the time acknowledged would not meet "lifeline route" standards), to replacing it altogether with a segmental concrete bridge which was widely criticized as a "freeway off-ramp into the sky," or building a cable-stayed bridge.  IIRC the "freeway off-ramp" was clearly the inferior option from the standpoint of navigation because it would have resulted in a lower and narrower envelope for ship transit.

Jerry Brown demanded the "signature span" at a time when a choice had to be made among three options:  the plain concrete bridge, the cable-stayed bridge, and the self-anchored suspension bridge.  Taking seismic performance and navigation considerations into account, the cable-stayed bridge and the self-anchored suspension bridge were clustered tightly together in terms of cost and performance, but the self-anchored suspension bridge was $30 million more expensive at a time when the total cost of the east span replacement was still only around $1 billion--a difference of about 3%.

The east span project is so large that the numbers of companies with the capacity to build it and to insure its construction are both very small.  Caltrans initially tried to let the whole thing as one contract, but was told up front by the contractors that it would not get any credible bids.  This was in about 2000, and Caltrans responded by breaking out the approach viaduct into a single large contract which was let around 2001 and has since experienced significant cost overruns.  The plan at this point was to let the self-anchored suspension span as a single large contract, but this had to be abandoned when it became uninsurable after the September 11 attacks, and the work was divided among multiple contracts.  (At the time, the bascule and over-water spans of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge were being advertised, and were initially another nine-figure single contract which later generated its own repackaging drama, blamed partially in this case on the Maryland governor's insistence on a project labor agreement.  This siphoned the contractors' estimating resource away from the Bay Bridge project, and made the bidding environment less competitive than it might otherwise have been.)  The most public, if not absolutely the largest, single increment of added cost arose from the superstructure contract for the SAS, which was advertised in 2003 at an estimated cost of about $700 million.  Two bids came in the following year (2004), both in excess of $1.4 billion, and caused a huge scandal.  After much hand-wringing and dramatics from both Governor Schwarzenegger and his BTH secretary Sunne Wright McPeak (both of whom should have shown far more sang froid than they did), Caltrans decided that the SAS could not be abandoned or repackaged any further and re-advertised the contract essentially on the same set of plans in 2005, and accepted the low bid--again, about $1.4 billion--the following year.

For the past decade, the story of the Bay Bridge east span replacement has largely been "It costs what it costs."  It is possible that the total construction cost would not have risen as far or as fast as it has if Caltrans had paid more attention to constructability issues before 2000, but some elements of the bidding environment and thus the cost escalation were completely unpredictable, like September 11, while others, such as the timing of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over-water spans construction procurement, were very difficult to predict in advance.  Caltrans was also committed more and more tightly to the design concept as construction progressed through the split contracts.  When Schwarzenegger and McPeak talked wildly about ripping up the SAS plans and going back to the freeway off-ramp plan, nobody could take them seriously, because that idea would have required another time-consuming and expensive transit through the Coast Guard permitting process.  (McPeak was also a well-known advocate of fast ferries as an alternative to fixed crossings of the Bay.  Her embrace of this idea showed how little understanding she had of transportation issues in general.)  The alternative plan of building a cable-stayed bridge through a design-build contract was only marginally more credible since the design effort would have been considerable, whereas there was a finished design already on the shelf and ready to go.

[flowmotion]

^ Willie Brown also delayed the bridge project by a year or more because he insisted it should be located to the south of the current span. He wanted to develop the Nimitz House on Treasure Island into some sort of party/marina area, and got the Navy to go along with that idea.


Caltrans Signage

* Guide Signs: B ... love the button copy which outlasts the newer reflective signs (e.g. deteriorating reflective signs on I-80 over the Sierras), greenouts can provide clues to former routings and route numbers, sort of indifferent on adding exit numbers and I have no problem with how Caltrans is dealing with the exit "tabs"

Signage - A

• Lots of button copy kept
• Uniform sign heights
• CA-style exit tabs

I'll subtract points for gross-looking filthy signs, mismatching greenout, and misaligned and crowded text. Advanced signage is sometimes weak, at least in the Bay Area. California-style exit tabs are neat, but too often they've been wedged into an existing layout.

C+

[Occidental Tourist]

^ Willie Brown also delayed the bridge project by a year or more because he insisted it should be located to the south of the current span. He wanted to develop the Nimitz House on Treasure Island into some sort of party/marina area, and got the Navy to go along with that idea.


Caltrans Signage

* Guide Signs: B ... love the button copy which outlasts the newer reflective signs (e.g. deteriorating reflective signs on I-80 over the Sierras), greenouts can provide clues to former routings and route numbers, sort of indifferent on adding exit numbers and I have no problem with how Caltrans is dealing with the exit "tabs"

Signage - A

• Lots of button copy kept
• Uniform sign heights
• CA-style exit tabs

I'll subtract points for gross-looking filthy signs, mismatching greenout, and misaligned and crowded text. Advanced signage is sometimes weak, at least in the Bay Area. California-style exit tabs are neat, but too often they've been wedged into an existing layout.

C+

It's just as bad down here in the south.  Try mismatched greenout covering over reflective borders and new retroreflective signs shedding their protective coating. 
5 north at Orange Crush
5 south at Euclid Street
5 north at Main Street (not sure what the reverse arrow is on top of the pull-through - maybe some experiment in truck lane signing?)

[agentsteel53]

(not sure what the reverse arrow is on top of the pull-through - maybe some experiment in truck lane signing?)[/url]

that is a U-down sticker.  it is graffiti.  it's been there for years.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?s=5149561