Sunday, July 17, 2005
Interesting Highway Signs
Took a little trip today to my usual valley spot about two hours away. Many times I have passed up and down the famous 101. And yes, there was an accident (?) that occurred this afternoon, so its reputation is well protected. Nothing serious, just a car that left the centre lane, went off the road to the right, hit a rock cut and then fell into a ravine about 20ft below. This happened on the four lane section, which is safer - so they say.
But what tickled my fancy today was these goofy rectangular signs that say “Measured 2.5 km ahead”, followed by “Measured 2.5 km begins”. Bad enough they should pick 2.5. If you are checking your speedometer, who is going to convert all that fraction stuff on the move?
Why not 1... or 2. But here is the warm and fuzzy part. I went from Dartmouth/Halifax to Middleton and return, approximately a two hour drive each way. There isn’t any sign anywhere that says “Measured 2.5 km ends”. That got anything to do with tourism?
Now there is one spot that says “Measured 1 km begins” and somewhere down the road “Measured 1 km ends”. Nifty eh?
Well not really. You see all Nova Scotia’s 100 series highways have what used to be called ‘mile markers’. They are now narrow little green signs, in kilometres of course, all along these highways exactly every kilometre apart, from the beginning of the highway to the end.
They are mostly used by emergency response people for accurate location of incidents, because the number is the same on both sides of the highway no matter what direction you travel.
But the thought occurred to me. Do we need “Measured 2.5 km ahead” anyway? Is that another waste of money. Seems to me one could just as easily use these exact kilometre markers to check your speedometer/odometer without the additional ones that most always have one missing...
This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Took a little trip today to my usual valley spot about two hours away. Many times I have passed up and down the famous 101. And yes, there was an accident (?) that occurred this afternoon, so its reputation is well protected. Nothing serious, just a car that left the centre lane, went off the road to the right, hit a rock cut and then fell into a ravine about 20ft below. This happened on the four lane section, which is safer - so they say.
But what tickled my fancy today was these goofy rectangular signs that say “Measured 2.5 km ahead”, followed by “Measured 2.5 km begins”. Bad enough they should pick 2.5. If you are checking your speedometer, who is going to convert all that fraction stuff on the move?
Why not 1... or 2. But here is the warm and fuzzy part. I went from Dartmouth/Halifax to Middleton and return, approximately a two hour drive each way. There isn’t any sign anywhere that says “Measured 2.5 km ends”. That got anything to do with tourism?
Now there is one spot that says “Measured 1 km begins” and somewhere down the road “Measured 1 km ends”. Nifty eh?
Well not really. You see all Nova Scotia’s 100 series highways have what used to be called ‘mile markers’. They are now narrow little green signs, in kilometres of course, all along these highways exactly every kilometre apart, from the beginning of the highway to the end.
They are mostly used by emergency response people for accurate location of incidents, because the number is the same on both sides of the highway no matter what direction you travel.
But the thought occurred to me. Do we need “Measured 2.5 km ahead” anyway? Is that another waste of money. Seems to me one could just as easily use these exact kilometre markers to check your speedometer/odometer without the additional ones that most always have one missing...
This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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