Wednesday’s discussion about a rather verbose street sign in Bloomington (many thanks to Art for the photo and to Steve E for posting background info) prompted this question from alert reader Amanjo:

Your post with the wonky Bloomington sign reminded me of something a coworker and I have been pondering for a while. What is the difference between the blue and the green street signs in Minneapolis? I figure if there’s a mystical road sign code, you’d be the one to crack it.

Roadguy does indeed understand the basics of Minneapolis’ color-themed street-name signs. The blue ones…

…are used to designate snow emergency routes, which means they get plowed first. (For our out-of-town readers, a snow emergency declaration is not as dire as it sounds — it just means that the city embarks on its three-day plowing schedule after a significant snowfall.) The blue-green color scheme even extends to the larger signs at major intersections:

Green signs, meanwhile, are used for two other kinds of roadways: parkways and non-snow emergency routes, such as…

It’s a little confusing, because those two types of roadways are plowed at different points in the three-day cycle. Fortunately, parkways often have “parkway” in the name, though sometimes they don’t. (Click here for the complete parkway list and a link to a large parkway map.)

Completing the city’s rather narrow street-sign spectrum is…

…brown. Brown is also for non-snow emergency routes. From what I can tell, brown is for east-west ones, and green is for north-south ones. (How is this distinction helpful? I know not.)

As long as we’re speaking of street signs, and as long as Roadguy was already tromping around in the snow and putting up with intersection-blocking Morons like these…

… here’s something to watch out for when you’re at an unfamiliar Minneapolis intersection: If the cross street is actually two different streets, the overhead sign may not tell you that. For example, approaching Uptown, folks traveling eastbound on Lake Street will see this sign:

But it’s only West Calhoun Parkway if you turn right; if you turn left, surprise — you’re on Dean Parkway. Strangely, if you’re approaching the intersection from the opposite direction, there’s a small sign to tip you off to the fact that you’re about to cross two different streets:

If you’re squinting a bit to read it, imagine trying to do so at 35 miles per hour. Still, it’s better than nothing, and I’m not sure why there aren’t more such signs wherever multiple roads meet up in one spot. Maybe Minneapolis could take a cue from the hyperinformative folks in Bloomington — but not too much of a cue.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 6:05 am and is filed under WUWT?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.