Mail: A summit, exit numbers and a new sign
Posted on February 1st, 2007 – 6:05 AMBy Roadguy
More from the mailbag:
Alert reader Steve wrote in from Bloomington to make sure that I had heard about today’s Road Pricing Summit in downtown St. Paul. Indeed I had — it’s from 8:30-11:30 a.m. at the Met Councils offices, and numerous high-powered types will be talking about tolls, a mileage tax and/or other user fees that could help pay for transportation projects. I’d been planning to go, but a last-minute scheduling change means that my services are required at Roadguy headquarters for my entire workday. If you happen to attend, however, please tell us all about it. (Well, actually, no, not all about it — just the interesting parts.)
Next up — a question from Mike from Chaska:
I drove tractor-trailer for 6 years while attending college…. I remember reading that the interstate system had a “regulation,” if you will, that required states to place the exit number sign on the exit sign… [on the side] in which the exit actually was….For example, if you’re driving on an interstate highway and the next exit, let’s say Exit 69, was a LEFT exit, meaning you would need to get into the left lane to exit the interstate, the exit number sign would sit on the LEFT top corner of the exit sign. If the exit was to the right, the exit number sign would sit to the top RIGHT corner of the exit sign. My experience has been that this is pretty consistent in most every state I’ve traveled, but not here in Minnesota. Any thoughts as to why?
My first thought is that Minnesotans like to be special — we call that little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street a “boulevard” even though no one else hardly anyone else does, we make it perfectly legal for slow drivers to stay in the left lane, etc. So maybe this is another unfortunate attempt at being distinctive, like an eyebrow piercing on someone who just shouldn’t have one.
I did some informal research, meaning I dug through some photos and drove around a bit, and guess what? Minnesota is indeed inconsistent on this matter. Sometimes we center the exit number…
… and sometimes we put it off to the side:
One similarity between these two signs: They both sit above exit-only lanes, and neither one warns the people below that their lane is about to veer off. That’s OK — drivers just love surprises.
Anyway, the bottom line is that, once again, Roadguy is a bit stumped — but alert readers and signage über-geeks like Froggie and HighPlainsTraveler might have an answer for us. Gentlemen?
We now close with a short note from Roadguy’s fellow blogger Amy, whose e-mail got my attention by using the subject line “The power of Roadguy”:
Hmmm… Roadguy blogs about the lack of a speed limit sign on Dell Road in Eden Prairie… and voila! A speed limit sign magically appears.
My, you do make Roadguy blush. I’m not in a position to claim credit — that sign may have been scheduled to appear all along — but I do know that my recent Eden Prairie post did get mentioned in the blog of E.P.’s city manager. That means that at least one public official is aware of my existence, putting me a hair closer to my goal of global transportation domination.
It’s gonna take a while, though, so keep those comments and e-mails coming.
18 Responses to "Mail: A summit, exit numbers and a new sign"
please please please use your magical powers, roadguy, and get the city of st. paul to put up a modest sign by my house. no, no, not one that says RILEY SLEPT HERE. i need one that says “cross traffic does not stop.” i live at the top of a T intersection, and only the traffic aimed directly at my house has a stop sign. the cross street does not. the problem is, most of the people who stop at the stop sign think it’s a three-way stop.
i called the city a few years back because there had been so many near-misses, horn-honking, and once a city bus had to veer out of the way and ended up on the boulevard (see comment above about boulevard definition).
the city told me they can’t put up a sign because there haven’t been enough accidents yet.
enough accidents? how about near-misses? i hear squealing brakes and agitated horn-honking just about every day.
please, roadguy. use your powers for good. even though it’s st. paul.
I grew up in Coon Rapids, and there was on stretch of Egret Blvd. where the speed limit in one direction was 40mph, but in the other direction the sign said 45mph. I contacted the city about it and I got an email back saying that the appropriate department was contacted and they were going to resolved the issue. 5 days later, the 40mph sign was replaced with a 45mph sign. The funny thing is that the signs were different for the entire time that I lived there, and after I mentioned it, they were corrected within 5 days. I don’t understand how no one else ever noticed this as it is a busy stretch of road.
Justified exit tabs (aligned to the right or left instead of centered) are in fact a national standard. In practice though, if as state or local governent decides they want to do something a certain way, the feds have a difficult time making them stop. How many years did California have no exit numbers; for years Florida used US highway markers that were colored. Minnesota has just recently decided to follow the national standard, signs with justified tabs are the ones that have been installed or replaced in the last few months.
Also violating national standards but commonly seen:
* “Slow, Children at Play” signs.
* Stop signs used for speed control
* Creative, nonstandard symbols on warning signs,
“Minnesotans like to be special — we call that little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street a “boulevard” even though no one else does.”
Huh? I grew up in Chicago, where I learned to call the strip of grass between the street and sidewalk what it is: a boulevard. This is the first I’ve heard that there might be large segments of the population with a vocabulary deficient in this area.
Roadguy, I’m going to send you some truely horrendous pictures that will make you appreciate having signs in the first place, even if they are not justified. NJ has these awful jug-handle turns for left-hand turns…which is not a bad idea since left turns can be a problem. The biggest issue is some left turns are jug handles and others are not. And there aren’t signs leading up to an intersection to tell you which way your street is coming up and may or may not be a jughandle…you just have to know your street is next and be prepared.
Then there are the street signs on major intersections where you can’t even read the name of the street because its all rubbed out. *sigh*
I had no idea about that exit sign tip! I am definitely keeping my eyes peeled for that on my trip to Wisconsin this weekend. Thanks for the tip!
We called them “boulevards” in Montana, too. On the other hand, there’s a fair number of scandinavians and Minnesota transplants there…
I did a little surfing on the “boulevard” matter. Interested parties should click here and check out the “regional note”:
Boulevards where I’m from in Illinois too. That being the downstate, redneckish, pour gravy on any food item remaining stationary for longer than 5 seconds part of the state.
Never knew that it could be called anything else, thanks for the nugget from your web search.
of course you know that new orleans has the best name ever for that strip of boulevard grass.
they call it “neutral ground.”
i love that.
There’s no special name for what Upper Midwesterners call “boulevard” in Texas. There, the word means “a surface street with a raised, usually grassy, center median”.
I always thought “boulevard” meant a street separated by a grassed/treed/gardened median. When I look the word up in my dictionary, I read “A broad city street, often tree-lined and landscaped.” Close?
Though the meaning may not be obvious, the editor in Roadguy surely would concur that “boulevard” is briefer than “that little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street” — which, in any case, hardly compares to the grand creations that city planning idealists can read about in “The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards.”
Following up Monte’s comment, the MUTCD (Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices) has several illustrations in Chapter 2E. Guide Signs—Freeways and Expressways.
Monte got to the answer before I could (being that I’m on a trip elsewhere…more on that later). The Exit 5/Hwy 100 sign (obviously from 394) appears to be of newer vintage, after MnDOT finally decided to go with the now-national standard of justified exit tabs on whichever side of the road the exit’s on.
Forgot to mention….regarding the “Power of Roadguy”, I was recently informed that most of the engineers/planners in the MnDOT Metro Division have at least heard of my website, and many browse it occasionally.
Maybe I should work on a website update…
Speaking of signs with no “Exit Only” banner on the bottom, why aren’t the roads around here more consistent about using short dashed lines on lanes that are going to disappear in 1000 feet? Being a person who’s not prone to speeding but tries to be a courteous right-lane dweller, I hate it when these things aren’t consistent…
The Haiwatha rail line should have been elevated.
