Friday, August 15, 2008

New Route Markers for US Routes

The following eight are for US Highways that are *not* of Interstate Quality and possess a distinctly 50s retro look with the banner inside the colored shield. The color coding would be for different types of routes, like Cody Goodman's signs at The Great International Highway Makeover and AJ Froggie's idea for bannered routes at Magnolia Meanderings. The first sign would be for the mainlines. It is red, white and blue with either "United States" for the banner, as shown, or with "US" alternatlvely.





This next would be for the posted Alternate Routes; the numeral field and the banner switch colors.




This one would be for the Truck Routes, black for heavy trucking.




The next one would be for the Business Routes. Its field is green, the color of money. All Business and City Routes that link to the mainline at both ends plus all "Loop" Routes would be marked as "Business Loop" as shown. All mainlines that have Bypass Routes going around an urban area would also become Business Loops; the Bypasses would then become parts of the mainlines. Also, all Business and City Routes that link to the mainline at one end *only* plus all "Spur" Routes would be similarly marked as "Business Spur."




Now this one with the "TOLL" banner could be for tolled sections of mainlines that are not otherwise interstate quality. It could also be used for tollways if it is decided on a national basis not to use the two US route markers shown in the pervious post for the US freeways and tollways.



These last three are the pleasure-oriented travel routes, brown on white. The first of these three would be for the Historic Routes. The last two would be for Scenic Routes. An' a tip' o' the ol' hat to RVD of The Great International Highway Makeover for the last one -- his US Highways 1 to 830 webpage with its Route A1A idea inspired that last one!










2 comments:

Taralyn said...

The mainline design of yours comes too close to the current Interstate design. They'd be loathe to use it for that reason alone - confusion. One could make a similar argument for the Alternate design even though it's the inverse color-wise.

The Business Route design is a good one (one of the description shields on my website is similar, but uses the CA US Highway shield as a template) - however, what about those cases where a Business route and a Bypass route (US 70 in places in NC, for example) exist along the same mainline area?

The "Scenic" idea already sees some use in Idaho, I think. Some places sign the Historic routes in a similar fashion as well.

Don't get me wrong. There's some merit to these ideas, but they need a little more thought.

Ed-M said...

Taralyn wrote,

"what about those cases where a Business route and a Bypass route (US 70 in places in NC, for example) exist along the same mainline area?"

If it's a business route, the mainline route AND a bypass route; then one of the three routes becomes a state road. (Sorry, only two US routes here.)