

The Fake Freeway Sign that Became a Real Public Service - rms
http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-real-public-service/

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jrockway
Is it just me, or is the writing incomprehensible? I have read the article and
the author's site, and I still don't get what happened. He put up a sign. But
what does the sign say? What was the part that was confusing? How did his sign
make things less confusing? Where's the "before" and "after" pictures that I
can compare?

I'm confused. Perhaps the artist should hack good.is and update the article
with some text on what actually happened...

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mindviews
The exit for the 5 North from the 110 freeway is a left exit with a wicked
left turn. This means that a) people unfamiliar with the area don't know to be
in the left lane to make the exit and b) because of the sharp left turn,
everyone has to slow down to <25mph and traffic backs up making the exit
difficult to merge into if you're late getting into the lane. It's a bad
interchange because that one lane can back up for a mile during rush hour.
It's such a poorly designed exit that Caltrans recently added in lights to the
lane divider in the pavement to signal that people cannot merge into that lane
within about 1/4 mile of the exit during rush hour.

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silencio
This does not stop people from changing lanes despite the lane dividers
anyway... (also, you forgot c, the people who keep going in the 110 lanes
because the sole exit lane for the 5 is backed up a mile to chinatown, who
then try to change lanes closer to the exit either dangerously by going from
70mph to like 10 in a matter of seconds or by blocking traffic).

I've always wondered about something every time I passed that exit, which used
to be on my daily commute for a few years. The exit for the 5 expands to two
lanes immediately after the sharp turn. There _seems_ to be enough room to
make two exit lanes to get to the 5, or at least good enough reason to expand
that little area to two exit lanes right there where there is currently some
type of barricade. I wonder why that's never happened, because a two lane exit
would probably cut down on the traffic and dangerous merging.

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forinti
This reminds me of an inicident in my town. There was a homeless guy who wore
a uniform that looked a bit like the one used by the traffic police. One day
the lights all went out and traffic was total caos. He went to the middle of
the street and started directing traffic. At first people didn't give him much
attention but soon saw that he was actually being sensible. So in the end he
did quite a good job and traffic flowed quite well.

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jseifer
I find it really incredible that a sign that wasn't supposed to be there, on a
major freeway, remained up for eight years. That's impressive.

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jrockway
Do you think there's some government official that drives from sign to sign,
comparing each to his notes on what it should look like?

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gscott
People are very rules based, they create certain rules for themselves to be
able to cope with life and then force you into those rules as well. It doesn't
matter how professional done or useful something is, if it isn't sanctioned
and someone finds out about it, expect it to be gone.

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idlewords
Except that Caltrans knew about this and decided to leave it up. Thus
invalidating your entire worldview!

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saturdayplace
As a cub scout I did the same thing, with similar results, just on a smaller
scale. A couple doors down from our house, the road made a 90° turn north. You
couldn't see 'through' the corner, and plenty of kids (myself included) played
on the street. I hand-painted a Slow: Children at Play sign, and asked
permission from a neighbor to put it in the parking strip in front of their
house (they were on the corner). Before too long, the city installed an
offical one.

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JadeNB
I used to have a colleague in Akron. He told me that the city had dithered for
months, if not years, over how to set up the parking in front of an area
coffee shop—I don't remember its name; a 2-word name with Rainbow, or River,
or something with an R?—to the point that a frustrated resident came by one
night and just painted diagonal parking stripes himself. The result was so
universally appreciated that the city didn't dare change it.

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brc
While not the same thing a few years back I was driving east on the M40 into
London, and someone had painted, in big letters 'Why do I do this everyday?'
on a fence. It was in a location where the traffic was often banked back. I
wondered how many people sat in their cars, read that sign, and threw in their
job when they got to work. Probably none, but a bet a lot of people wished
they could.

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SwellJoe
California signage is the worst I've ever seen, at least in northern
California where I've been for the past 3 years. Sometimes you don't know
there's a highway until you're already passing the exit for it; the signs are
often _on_ the exit, mounted too low to see from very far away, and with the
arrow angled downward as if to make sure you can't misunderstand which exit
it's talking about. If you don't know exactly where the highway is, and you're
as directionally challenged as I am, simply finding the right highway can be
extremely stressful.

I don't get distressed easily, and certainly not historically by the simple
act of driving, but driving in California is extremely stressful for me. There
are at _least_ a few thousand locations in California where some guerilla
public service would be a great help. I just get angry every time I drive
here, because I'm always lost, always having to turn around because I missed
my exit or turn, and even when I'm in the right place I can't tell because the
signs suck so much.

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nudist
Just curious, but have you ever driven in Boston? I think Northern
California's signage is decent or better than most places.

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SwellJoe
Nope, I taxied and rode the train when I was in Boston.

I had a hard time with the beltway in Virginia/D.C. (I drove it twice and went
the wrong way both times) and Denver/Boulder. I might hate them equally if I
had to live in those places. I lived in Houston for 7 years and Austin for 6,
and Houston has the nicest roads and signage of any city I've ever visited.
Austin gets a lot of complaints, but I never had much trouble there.

I'm dysgraphic, and the directional component has the most noticeable impact
on my day to day. If I have the option to turn and have no signs to tell me
which way is which, I will choose the wrong direction at least 50% of the
time. I occasionally get lost in parking lots (seriously, the big shopping
center at Showers/San Antonio in Mountain View; I've been lost in that lot
several times).

So, maybe for some folks California is fine. For me it is a seriously hostile
driving environment. Luckily, I don't drive much.

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slapshot
Works great when the artist is smart and safe.

Works poorly when the artist doesn't think the edits through, doesn't take
adequate safety precautions, or makes a worse mess of things.

And don't even get me going about the people who think highway signs need more
"creative" editing (the first "STOP ... Hammertime" sign was funny; the 15th
wasn't).

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JshWright
My personal favorites are the stop signs with "war" scrawled on them. Right...
because Mr Obama is going to be driving through your neighborhood, see that
sign, and suddenly have an epiphany...

~~~
jamesbritt
"Right... because Mr Obama is going to be driving through your neighborhood,
see that sign, and suddenly have an epiphany..."

Or, maybe, voters.

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robobenjie
On Stanford Campus we used to have an intersection called "The Intersection of
Death" which was a 4 way mostly blind bike-only intersection of two major bike
routes. In the middle of the night the trumpet section of the marching band
erected a roundabout in the center of it complete with signs explaining which
way to go. amazingly a week later it was still there and someone replaced the
half-assed trumpet player statue they had erected with a cool abstract pvc
sculpture. A few weeks later someone else added to it. The roundabout was
guerrilla installed in fall and the university left it standing until the next
summer when they tore it out and put a permanent cement one in.

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mjsergey
This reminds me of the artist(s) TrustoCorp that put up parodies of street
signs <http://www.flickr.com/photos/45644444@N05/> although I'm sure their's
are way more likely to be taken down.

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yef
How very LA.

Boston needs about a thousand artists like that guy.

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thinkbohemian
Great idea, this reminds me of the guy who reverse graffiti-ed cities, by
pressure washing them. Though a sign is more useful.

<http://reversegraffitiproject.com/>

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steamer25
Reminds me of Harry Tuttle, Robert De Niro's character in Brazil.

