With profuse thanks to the car-player owner who runs a custom road-sign company...

Peter

nice

Sweet guys! Glad you got it.. uh... in the nick of time!

Okay, so, as I want to know (and probably most everyone else here on the board).. who is everybody?

Me.

ROFL

Someone needs to put that up on riocar.org with name captions.

Oh, that was you! (You didn't mention your BBS name in your email!)

From left to right we have: Toby (prolux), Dave, Richard-the-first, me holding the sign, Roger, John Graley (jonnygee), Richard-the-second, Hugo (altman) helping hold the sign, a bit of Mike Crowe (mac) (who's a lot taller than Hugo in real life but the ground slopes deceptively), Mike Seymour, Lucie, Rob, and John Ripley (john). Some of these people have never before been seen on this BBS...

Peter

I'm praying for Lucie... the one girl with all of you guys. We're talking years of counseling.

hehe very nice. Looks like Toby didn't really want his picture taken.

And all I can think of is 'what state is "CHAPTER"?'

http://www.aaroadtrips.com/vermont/us-002_eb_vermont_shield_marshfield.jpg

Well, that, and when I stayed at a motel in Carlisle, PA, every room had a flyer which read:
"US 11 is a dangerous highway. Do not attempt to cross US 11 on foot."

I'm praying for Lucie... the one girl with all of you guys. We're talking years of counseling.

Speaking from the same situation, I can tell you that any woman who works with that many guys can definitely handle the men. I'd be praying for the guys instead.

Ha ha... Your probably right... my wife doesn't seem to have any trouble working me over.

And all I can think of is 'what state is "CHAPTER"?'

Okay, now everyone gets to see how much of a road geek I really am..

State names are no longer placed on any road Marker signs, with one exception.
Sign M4-1, the US Highway sign is to only have the route number, and one of "Business", "Loop", or "Spur" on the sign itself. Other auxilliarry markers allowed are the standard directional (North, South, East, West), as well as "Alt", "Detour", "Jct", "To", among a few other less-known ones.

The last Marker sign to have state names on it were M1-1, the Interstate signs. Only Georgia (possible one other state) puts their state name on it, and the sign's designation is "M1-1a". Otherwise, they figure that you know what state you're in.

Okay. Shutting up now.
Me.

That is a very cool website you have.

So can you answer the question in that car commercial?

Why does Hawaii have an interstate?

Why does Hawaii have an interstate?

I believe that this is a funding issue. The federal government pays for it, therefore it is an interstate. This also means that the government can close it and use it for tanks and stuff in times of war. I could be totally wrong about this though.

State names are no longer placed on any road Marker signs, with one exception.

Sure, but there are still plenty (well, not that many) old shields around. The Interstate shields, notably, but a few others.

There's still an old PA130 shield on my way home, as well, no longer on PA130!

And of course the colored highway shields also became non-standard, again thanks to the MUTCD.

(More here, and incidentally, this site also has information on the Allegheny County Belt System, a local "we're too cheap to build a beltway" approach to getting people around the county. Note that the upper right corner of the Orange Belt enters Westmoreland County, briefly!)

And then there werethe pre-numbering routes, the most famous of which was the Lincoln Highway.

My county has actually posted historic Lincoln Highway signs along the roads which were the old Lincoln Highway (e.g. not the current US30 bypasses of Greensburg, Latrobe and Ligonier).

I forgot, a picture of said sign is near the bottom of this page.

Wow. I practically live *on* Lincoln Highway (Business Rt 30) in Chester County, PA. I knew it was pretty historic, but didn't know it stretched all the way the heck out to San Fran.

Neat.

I used a good chunk of it when going west to Lincoln, NE, for a wedding a few years back. I left Pittsburgh and didn't get on I-80 until Chicago Heights, IL, or so. I'd sort of like to go explore more of it.

It's changed a lot since I got my license. This place, which sat vacant for a while, burned down about 18 months ago. I haven't been past since.

Cool. It looks like the kind of road that would be really cool for a "road trip." Looks like it passes through some pretty neat slices of America.

Around here it's also called the Lancaster Turnpike. I found this neat page documenting some of the old highway signs. One of them is now located at this inn which is about a 2 minute walk from my apartment.

I met Brian Butko a few times at local functions. I don't really "know" him, but he's an interesting guy.

Cool. It looks like the kind of road that would be really cool for a "road trip." Looks like it passes through some pretty neat slices of America.

So is US50 - I took that all the way from Colorado out to California. One of the lonliest stretches of road, period. (Also a great place to find out how fast your car really CAN go..)

Florida has always been strange on route markers.
For the first time this weekend, I actually saw an auxilliary marker (Those thigs that have like 'North', 'South', 'ALT', 'JCT', etc..) that was labeled "OLD".

The MUTCD guys keep trying to lock-down things so they're 'standard', and individual states keep coming up with their flavor of things. (I LOVE California's Speed Limit signs. To the point. <g>)

Me.

Sure, but there are still plenty (well, not that many) old shields around. The Interstate shields, notably, but a few others.

Ooh, yeah. I wasn't debating that. Hell, I had a DOT official FROM your state order an Interstate shield with the state name on it.

Me.

I'm seen an "OLD" auxiliary marker somewhere; I wish I knew where.

I'm amused that when future-I-99 opened north from State College recently that US220 was rerouted via US322 and then over that highway to I-80, old US220 became "Alternate" US220 according to signs... which were being posted while I was driving home from the highway opening.

Of course, then there's the whole Shusterway debacle. I-99 is the only interstate whose number was legislated instead of being selected by the AASHTO. Sure, 75, 77, 79 exist to the west, and 81, 83 to the east (85 further south and 87 further north) but 99 is just such a farce.

In reality, 81 should have been 85, and all of what are 83, 85 and 87 should have been 87. There's precedent for disjoint use of numbers: 76 exists in PA/OH and running from 80 down to Denver in the west.

I guess they didn't realize 81 would be so popular, but surely they knew it would have the length it did, which certainly makes it more useful overall than 85 is.

That is a very cool website you have.

Thanks. I do it in my spare time so it's not quite finished.. (Dunno if it will ever be, actually..)
I started out getting signs and signals for Arcades, Amusement Parks, and Businesses that needed stuff like that because most times it's not readily available without a contract and minimum order. Since I started online, I've been getting alot of custom orders and such; some of them extremely strange.

Me.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell - Funding.
However, that's a long-standing joke about Interstates and Hawaii. I hear people are still trying to find the tunnel from San Fran.

Me.

I don't know any PennDOT people other than in the mass transit bureau, anymore. My brother interned there.

We like our state name on the shields here. I think there's an interstate shield with the state name on a BGS somewhere in the middle of the state. Might even be an older sign with the reflective button copy.

And speaking of such signs, remember this?

And I reminded myself... I still haven't found a source for those darn reflective buttons. I had a sign in mind, but without the reflectors...

Heh.
I'm assuming everyone knows the 'rule' for numbering -
2-digit odd numbers are North/South routes, 2-digit evens are East-West.
3-digit starting with a odd number are Spurs, 3-digit evens are bypasses/perimiters.
Does this I-99 follow THAT numbering scheme?

But yeah, there are errors in a few places - "I-220" is used more than once - In Alabama, and Louisiana, I think.

(And then, on top of it all, there's just confusion about many of the signs, espically the Ped Zone/ Ped Crossing and the School Zone / School Crossing. In Georgia, here, they've gone out of their way to screw those up, which while it dosn't really affect anything, it does if you happen to get a ticket for some reason. Wrong size/shape/legend signs can get you out of traffic violations in a heartbeat.)

Me.