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Street signs


krazeeboi

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I was simply wondering if green and white were the only official colors for standard street signs, not part of any historic neighborhood or specific district (e.g., college campuses). I think it would be cool to see some variation in color on street signs in different cities on major thoroughfares.

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In the United States, all road signs are to follow the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices put out by the Federal Highway Administration. This is the same regulation that insures, for example all stop signs are octagonal and are red with white letters. Consistancy makes for safer traffic. Street signs are considered information signs and those type of signs are green and white as you noted. I assume it's possible for a city to create its own color scheme that would go counter to this regulation. However I expect this might affect their ability to attract federal highway money and/or open them up to lawsuits which is why you don't see much of it.

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In the city of Grand Rapids, MI, the street signs are the standard green and white but features the city's logo followed by the street name. In some area's of the greater metro area I've seen blue and white signage and even some that were brown and white.

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Street signs vary a bit in Rhode Island. Green and white is very common, as is blue and white, as can be seen in this pic from Newport:

00000175ok.jpg

Those are by far the most common colors, but there are the occasional signs in purple and white, or even red and white. Some historic districts have old-fashioned cast iron signs in black and white.

Also, there is no real standard size or layout for the signs, and they will vary a bit from neighborhood to neighborhood. To make things even more confusing, New England is notorious for leaving some blocks unsigned altogether.

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In the United States, all road signs are to follow the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices put out by the Federal Highway Administration.

County road departments often do not use proper fonts/highway shields/etc in many states with their signage. Take a look at County Route 526 as an example in Ocean County, then after that, check out the Rhode Island pages.

NC and VA are the best states by far, when it comes to abiding the MUTCD standard

I was simply wondering if green and white were the only official colors for standard street signs, not part of any historic neighborhood or specific district (e.g., college campuses). I think it would be cool to see some variation in color on street signs in different cities on major thoroughfares.

Over here in Central Jersey, all of the municipalities in Middlesex County do use different colors other than green/white for street signs. Piscataway by far, is the most creative with their overhead/ground pole street signage.

Here are some others i can find on Alps Roads

Temp NJ 41 at CR 573

NJ 62 at US 46

Newark-Pompton Turnpike at Black Oak Ridge Road (first photo you see)

Broad St, Newark

Belleville Ave at JFK Parkway

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i know in montgomery co. pa the signs are blue and yellow as well

Blue and yellow is a street sign combo I don't think I've seen before. Most of the municipalities in that county have green/white or white/black. Judging from what I've seen around I'd rank the most popular street sign color schemes as:

1. green/white - almost everywhere

06bayou_300x210.jpg

2. blue/white - most popular alternative

streetsign_blue.gif

3. white/black - another popular alternative, esp for older signs

lelean%20street%20sign.jpg

4. brown/white - usually in historic or special districts

5979161.pict6049.jpg

5. black/white - usually in special districts or office parks

Street%20Sign.jpg

6. red/white - rare, but around

7. yellow/black - rare, often used to designate a private street or road.

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The Blue/White street signs shown above are allowed. They are supposed to be tourist oriented signs. The Hollywood sign certainly qualifies for that. I am not sure about the other one. You probably will see more of these in historic districts if a city has decided to take this approach.

The individualized state highway markers are also allowed in the manual.

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2006-1009-signs.jpg

Here's an annoying collection of signs in Providence (I joke that the people who put new signs up and the people who take old signs down must be in seperate unions).

The Empire sign with the purple strip above it is the current design. Each section of the city has a different colored strip. Though these signs haven't been distrubuted much out of Downcity and the East Side. There's also green with white, and light blue with white signs up there.

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All of the street signs in the city of Pittsburgh are blue and white. I don't have a picture, but on major streets they often include the name of the neighborhood at the top, as well as the first and last house numbers for the block.

Neighborhood labels on street signs would be so cool for Richmond... the sad thing is the city doesn't know its own neighborhood's true names, so they'd be incorrect and I'd be so :angry:

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In Orlando, our street signs are white with green trim and which shows the Lake Eola fountain (means you are in the city of Orlando) in blue in the left corner and the street name in blue lettering. Orange county street signs are similar white with green trim and an orange (the fruit) colored orange in the left hand corner and green lettering.

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In west Micigan I noticed GR has standard green and white with the symbol and the comemerative roads are blue and white (cesar chavez, dirk van phlug?) but then MLKJr is red for some reason.

All the signs in Kalamazoo are Blue and white, private can be whatever they want

sorry no pics of what I'm talking about

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there's some rural towns in RI and CT that have street signs on posts. the wood posts are painted white and the street name is either carved into it and painted black or just painted black on the post. those are really annoying.

but i've seen various signs in various cities and towns be black with white writing, white with black writing, and blue with white writing... all in addtion to the standard green/white.

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I for one am glad there's at least a semblance of uniformity in signage; I wish more were done about the placement of the signs instead of the look, though. I notice the ones in Texas are hard to find and give you no time to react if you're in the wrong lane, it's gotten me on the wrong highway/freeway a couple times already. I suppose if you've lived here and learned to drive here it's not as bad, but it throws me for a loop.

As for alternatives, there were a couple places in the Bay Area (Los Gatos is the first that comes to mind) that used Brown/white signage as well. It worked pretty well, at least no worse than blue/white and green/white.

Here, most of the street signs in cities are green/white, and as you get outside the city, they turn to blue/white for county roads, etc.

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The Blue/White street signs shown above are allowed. They are supposed to be tourist oriented signs. The Hollywood sign certainly qualifies for that. I am not sure about the other one. You probably will see more of these in historic districts if a city has decided to take this approach.

The individualized state highway markers are also allowed in the manual.

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