Why does MassPort even both to make signs?

[pseydtonne]

For at least a decade, Massachusetts (the Commonwealth where each geek gets one's own pot holes) has put up no new signs... umm, anywhere. Suddenly they've been putting up a bunch of them in the suburbs. However, many of them seem to be useless. Here comes an example.

I was driving up 128 north from metahacker's place to go home. Just after exit 30 (route 2A in Lexington) I see a new mileage sign: "Burlington 7; Peabody 21..." and something else was 44 (maybe Newburyport). Keep in mind the following facts:

• There is an exit about once every mile on this orbital road around Boston;
• Lexington borders both Burlington and the next town after it, Woburn;
• The first Burlington exit is exit 32A;
• There are already mile markers along the road.

I know already that Burlington is maybe three miles from this point. I notice that my trip meter is at 1221.0 so I note this in my head and note that I reached the "Entering Burlington" sign at 1223.5. This is 2.5 miles, which is also four kilometers but isn't seven of any normal measurement. There aren't even seven exits in Burlington, merely five: 32A and B, 33 A and B, and 34.

When I used to commute to Manchvegas, The Future of Redneck Ghettos, I saw mileage signs that I could not figure out until I realized they were in kilometers. I thought these may be the same kind of thing but they aren't. Either someone meant to put this sign a lot earlier on 128 north (say, just after the onramps from Mass Pike) or this is a psych experiment. In fact, a simple test with Google Maps shows that the western edge of Burlington (43 Middlesex Tpke, aka. exit 32B) to the western edge of Peabody (1 Newburyport Tpke, aka. U.S. 1) is 13 miles which gets me 14 miles when I add a little for the distance from the U.S. 3 onramps to Middlesex Pike. Since 21 minus 7 is indeed 14, the sign itself is accurate internally but anchored incorrectly. Therefore a location seven miles back would be about 4.5 miles behind where the sign is now.

How hard is it to put a mileage sign WHERE IT WAS CALCULATED TO BE VALID? To whom should I write the letter with my research? Can I have the sign named after the dead person of my choice for spotting the FLAGRANT ERROR?

Promised stories later. I had to vent about this before my mind could let me sleep.

-OCD plus map obsession equals Dante

Comments

[cos]

Mileage signs are always supposed to give you the distance to the city or town's milestone, usually located in the middle of downton or the old town center (in most new England towns, at or near the common, more often than not). They're not supposed to give you the distance to the nearest edge of the city or town in question.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

This is not true for expressway mileage signs. On an expressway, the mileage to the town center is almost irrelevant because you have to get off the expressway to get to the town center and your route once off the expressway may vary. Also, expressway mileage signs are usually composed to meet Federal standards because the highways themselves are in Federal hands (route 128 is really Interstate 95 at the point, for example).

Expressway mileage signs use the name of a town to supplant the distance to the first exit within that town. In other words, "it's this many miles to the first place you get interchanges for the following town; after that you're on your own." I've driven around America enough and had OCD long enough to focus on these things.

If you want the classic example, you have to leave Mass and head into New York. All distances on the Thruway are based on how far you are from the Westchester-Bronx county border's intersection with Interstate 87 (this is where the Thruway becomes the Deegan). At you head east or south on the Thruway, you see mileage signs stating "New York City". This is not the distance to City Hall or even Columbus Circle but to the border of the first county you will encounter.

My original point about the sign was that the mileages on the board are correct relative to each other. I did assume in my statement the border-exit to border-exit approach to calculation. However, the mileages upon the sign match each other this way (Peabody town center is another several miles from Burlington's, more like 17 instead of 14).

Oh, and Burlington town center is not seven miles from that location, either -- five if you stretch it.

I realize the point you are making: on state roads, the signs are supposed to reflect town center distances. This is why you can see a sign saying a town is 3 miles away when you are inches from the "entering" sign for that town. However, Federal expressways have different standards relative to themselves. They have more to do with "this far until you get a different kind of sign" standards. These have been applied. Someone on the Federal level did the math and a state person shuffled the sign with another one.

I feel like my response was snarky but I do not want it to be. You need to understand that I take these mileage things seriously because they reflect how outsiders see a place. Massachusetts doesn't care much for outsiders. It hints that we aren't smart enough to put a sign where it's any use because none of us need it and we don't need the people that do need it. This needs to change.

[dimers.livejournal.com]

So what dead person would be your choice?

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Paul Battaglia. He was the only person I knew that died on September 11th. I later learned his office was right near a point of impact, so it's likely he was one of the first to go.

Oh wait, I was supposed to give a goofy answer, wasn't I? Hunter S. Thompson then. Think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and all the driving.

[dimers.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, I was supposed to give a goofy answer, wasn't I?

Neh, not really. I haven't read or seen Fear-n-Loathing anyway, so I got more out of the serious answer anyway. =)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Approaching Bingies from here by usual routes, at one point according to the signs it recedes before getting closer again. I forget exactly where it is; probably around Albany.