Roadguy realizes that he’s not exactly been accentuating the positive this week, so to get everyone into a Friday frame of mind, here are a few photos from the more upbeat end of the spectrum — some Transportation Affirmations, if you will.

This skyline picture might not immediately seem transportation-y, but it was taken from one of my favorite sites in the Twin Cities: the Highland Park Water Tower in St. Paul. The tower’s observation deck is only open to the public a few days each year, and its fall open house was this past weekend. The idea is to let visitors check out the autumnal colors, but it’s also a transportation geek’s dream. Not only are there vistas of the airport tarmac, but the views down Snelling Avenue…

…provided cartographic delights. (It’s not really visible in this CrapCam photo, but due south in Dakota County, there was a gap in the trees. Turned out to be Pilot Knob Road — who knew it lined up with Snelling?)

The observation deck also offered the opportunity for aerial traffic-flow analysis:

Fortunately, no Morons were sighted (or cited) from above.

Because autumn is not just leaf-turning season but also election season, we now take a look at this attempt at low-cost car refinishing:

This extremely loyal vehicle has probably been around for a couple of years, but I just spotted it last week in Minneapolis’ Wedge neighborhood. Kucinich campaign materials are not easy to come by these days, but boxes of bumper stickers for other doomed candidates will be widely available starting Nov. 8, so plan your rust-proofing today.

Next, a sign of hope in the struggle against bad signage:

Yes, someone actually thought the word “dangerous” had an “e” on the end. (I again find myself slightly concerned about the state of education in my native Wisconsin, where this was taken.) The heartening part is that someone other than yours truly wielded the equivalent of a giant eraser and tried to fix the problem. One Roadside Typo down, a few zillion to go.

And finally, some Transportation Affirmation in the truth-challenged world of roadwork signs:

Behold — the lanes in question are actually closed. Gold stars all around — I was beginning to wonder whether such things were possible.

All right, that’s enough goodness for one day — too much at once and Roadguy needs his insulin. But if you’ve got any Transportation Affirmation nominations, send ‘em on in.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 6:05 am and is filed under Roadside Typos, Scenes and stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.