Signs With Design Errors

[myosh_tino]

This gantry on I-5 in San Diego; is it me or is the Exit 7B sign a little cramped? Are the 'EXIT ONLY' tabs with white arrow common practice elsewhere in California?

Yes, the sign on the right is a little cramped due to the addition of the exit number.  I suspect Caltrans reused the existing mounting hardware (the sign "frame") which is why the sign height could not be increased to improve the vertical spacing between the two road names.

As for the "EXIT" and "ONLY" plaques around a white arrow, yes that is somewhat common in California.  The more common setup for a lane drop is "EXIT" and "ONLY" on a single plaque with a white-on-green arrow.

BTW, is the placement of an exit direction sign plus TWO advance guide signs on the same support structure a violation of the MUTCD?

[roadfro]

^ Not a direct violation that I'm aware of. It wouldn't necessarily be considered a best practice, although I have seen such things elsewhere (including Nevada).

[exit322]

Noticed this one in my mother's hospital room.  OK, not a road sign, but where is clip art of a yellow stop sign coming from?  Wouldn't computer clip art be from way after stop signs turned red? 

The sign's in Akron.  Shouldn't we just be happy they spelled "STOP" correctly?

[agentsteel53]

As my last update and next update keep saying, don't ever expect Caltrans to do anything consistently, or correctly. They mastered the art of guide signing in the 1950s and didn't touch it until the 2000s - that's right, a freeway opening in 2000 still had non-reflective background button copy! So they will have to catch up, but they are too stubborn to just play nice.

I think the change from non-reflective underlit porcelain signs to button copy signs in 1973 (with a corresponding retrofit of the formerly underlit signs to be "button copy" by the gluing on of buttons!) could be considered a major change.

but yes, your point stands.  one significant revision in the sign specifications between 1959 and 2002.

[formulanone]

White letters on yellow?

[Special K]

White letters on yellow?

And white radii of a black border?   Disaster.

[Dr Frankenstein]

If the entire border was white, I wouldn't have made a point of that, but... how the hell could someone think THIS was okay?

[vtk]

Yeah, the black/white/yellow combinations in the corners remind me of crash test equipment.

[formulanone]

And white radii of a black border?   Disaster.

Hmmm, never caught that...Doubly odd.

[jeffandnicole]

And I doubt that left lane is I-240...especially with the traffic light ahead.

[1995hoo]

And I doubt that left lane is I-240...especially with the traffic light ahead.

It should say "TO I-240." Found the signs on Bing Maps' street view. It's eastbound Democrat Road at Plough Boulevard near Memphis International Airport. I-240 is a short distance to the north.

[roadman]

Yes, the sign on the right is a little cramped due to the addition of the exit number.  I suspect Caltrans reused the existing mounting hardware (the sign "frame") which is why the sign height could not be increased to improve the vertical spacing between the two road names.

As has been discussed on other threads within AARoads, CalTrans has a huge reluctance to replace overhead sign structures, even though most of those structures are at least as old as the signs themselves.  One common theory being discussed in the highway signing community (outside of California) is that any proposal to replace structures, or to even add separate exit number tabs on the replacement signs - which the supports probably could handle - would trigger additional environmental reviews and possibly would be denied.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Along Monterey Rd. in the Santa Clara Valley lies one of several guide signs with green 101 numerals:


On CA-99 in south Sacramento County, there are several of these retarded-looking 99 shields with slanted numerals (Also with new raised-cap directional banners that have recently started getting common in CA):

[national highway 1]

Along Monterey Rd. in the Santa Clara Valley lies one of several guide signs with green 101 numerals:

Not bad! I quite like it, good specs and proportions. Maybe a reverse outline shield!

[hbelkins]

There are more than a few West Virginia county route and HARP route signs with green numbers, and they're becoming more prevalent.

[myosh_tino]

On CA-99 in south Sacramento County, there are several of these retarded-looking 99 shields with slanted numerals (Also with new raised-cap directional banners that have recently started getting common in CA):

The latest batch of raised-cap directional banners look pretty good although you have too look pretty hard to notice the raised first letter.

Old Banner:


New Banner:


California's first batch of raised-cap banners (GSV example) looked pretty bad because the letters seemed to be too big for the banner.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

I don't think arrows on street blades are supposed to be like this... (And yes, this is in Salinas. Is it the Clarendon that tells you?)


Meanwhile in San Francisco, here is a wannabe 101 outline shield at the Golden Gate Bridge SF Visitors Center:

[vtk]

Not a major error, but it looks quite strange and I can't imagine how the draftsman might have thought this was correct:

(click for Google Street View)

[Billy F 1988]

Looking at this Chris Kalina photo, is it me, or does that "0" on the I-90 shield look fat?

[amroad17]

Not a major error, but it looks quite strange and I can't imagine how the draftsman might have thought this was correct:

(click for Google Street View)

The original button copy sign was exactly the same as this one.  Carbon copy!

[agentsteel53]

Looking at this Chris Kalina photo, is it me, or does that "0" on the I-90 shield look fat?

yep.  the 9 is Series C, the 0 is Series D.  and the state name is too large.

by Dec 2007, the last "A" in the state name had fallen off.

[vtk]

Not a major error, but it looks quite strange and I can't imagine how the draftsman might have thought this was correct:

(click for Google Street View)

The original button copy sign was exactly the same as this one.  Carbon copy!

In that case, I have a crazy theory – so crazy, it might not even be supported by old maps, which I have but not with me at the moment.  The original sign might have listed US 22 and OH 1.  OH 3 might have been skipped because of its lengthy overlaps, and OH 1 included because of its importance as the temporary designation for the Ohio Turnpike Project II corridor.  OH 3 was added later, and OH 1 removed later still.

But now I remember OH 1 went by way of Dayton, and parts of I-71 south of Columbus were shown on maps as OH 3, not OH 1.  If OH 3 was the freeway here, that would explain why it might have originally been absent from this exit sign.  Maybe to the right of US 22 was TO or TEMP I-71.  OH 3 would have been added to the right of that when it was put back on US 22, and then the I-71 removed at the appropriate time, leaving OH 3 way over on the right.  Maybe.

[Central Avenue]

This one's on private property, so it's not an MUTCD issue, but it still bugs me:



Qualifying "Cross traffic does not stop" with "at this intersection" doesn't actually add any necessary information. It only serves to make the sign wordier and make it take longer to read.

[Interstatefan78]

Even in the Phillipsburg,NJ area NJDOT does sometimes use a US highway shield for RT-173 and RT-122 in my case I would treat them as signing error because both RT-173 and RT-122 are not US highway routes, but US-22 is the primary US highway and Southern Warren County, NJ   

[Compulov]

Qualifying "Cross traffic does not stop" with "at this intersection" doesn't actually add any necessary information. It only serves to make the sign wordier and make it take longer to read.

I've seen these at intersections which probably don't need them; however, I do think they're useful at intersections which have compliance issues. Specifically, there's a few intersections which (for whatever reason) look like 4-way stops. So you have people who approach, stop, then start again, thinking the cross traffic will stop when they approach. Forgetting the obvious lack of 4-way signage at a 2-way stop, you really should exercise more caution at *all* intersections. Never assume cross traffic is going to stop, even if it *is* a 4-way. At any rate, I suspect the cops get tired of getting called out to specific intersections for accidents (I can think of one in Jackson, NJ), so they eventually put up the cross-traffic does not stop signs.

Edit: Sorry, still drinking my morning coffee. I guess you didn't have a problem with "cross traffic does not stop" so much as you did with "at this intersection". I agree, that's just stupid. At what intersection would they be referring?