NA Infrastructure: Road Markings, Bridges Etc.

[trisonic]

Please use this thread to place any item of interest such as the PDF of road markings in the USA.

I will pin this.

Over to you (lot)....

 

Best, Pete.

[trisonic]

Road Markings PDF: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part3.pdf

 

 

Pete.

[Adrian Wintle]

And for Ontario (from Gerald Henriksen):

 

Rules in Canada are set by the individual provinces.

 

In Ontario a single solid yellow line is permissable if the speed limit is below 70 km/h, otherwise it must be a solid double yellow line.  The following website has the Ontario guidelines - http://www.directtra...eful-documents/ - and the yellow line rule is page 36 of book 11.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Adrian Wintle

[highpeak]

This Wikipedia page is fairly useful in that it shows sample state highway signs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_highways_in_the_United_States

 

There are also links to information about the highway system in each state, some of the pages I checked had historical information.

Edited July 21, 2014 by highpeak

[highpeak]

Another way of suggesting a location and era is (if your eyesight is better than mine) with vehicle license plates. These have typically changed considerably over the years.

For instance, when I moved to Connecticut in 1980, our plate was white letters on a blue background. And that is singular, from 1980 onwards you only got one plate to be attached to the rear of the vehicle, the front bumper had no plate. The state went back to issuing two plates in 1987. Then in 2000 they changed the colors to navy blue letters on a white/blue background, all the old plates were replaced over a couple of years.

 

One big difference between the US and the UK is that the plate stays with the owner when you sell the vehicle, it doesn't go with the vehicle. You can see quite old permutations of letters and numbers on new vehicles, unlike the UK where the plate was/is a way of telling the age of the vehicle.

 

We also have a fair variety of plates. My 1979 MGB has an antique plate, black letters on a white background. In CT, vehicles over 25 years old are eligible for these plates, so a model MGB with that kind of plate says the year has to be somewhere past 2000 or so. If the MG was representing a newish vehicle, then the plate would be white letters on blue background.

 

There are a lot of differences between the UK and the US when it comes to plates. A trailer has its own registration and does not carry the same plate as the tractor unit, and may not even be registered in the same state given the nature of the trucking business. Vanity plates have been a lot more liberal over here, CT allows any combination of 7 characters (used to be 6) as long as it wasn't obscene and wouldn't be confused with a normal plate. So if you like to have talking points, a fast car with BLUBYU as a plate might work for you.

Digging further into the minutia, municipalities in CT have their own plate number sequences, offering another way of subtly establishing fairly precisely where in the US we are (if you can read the damned little plates). A pickup truck with a heap of tarmac in the back, a CT plate saying 73 BR and a couple of guys fixing a big pothole says we're in Branford and it's probably spring time. That's another seasonal clue you could add to the roads: in the snow belt we chuck so much sand and salt on the roads that around about April or whenever it seems like we've seen the last of Old Man Winter you'll see the highway crews out with a street sweeper and a truck behind it for protection cleaning up the reminder of the winter. Town crews deal with local roads, state DOT does the state highways, at least in CT.

 

As expected, Wikipedia has an overview [url[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_States[/url] with state history available on at least some of the links, but the images appear to be incomplete on some pages.

 

This might strike some as being a kind of rivet counting exercise, but I've seen some excellent efforts on layouts on this site to suggest time and place, and offer these ideas to help those who like this sort of thing.

[highpeak]

I was doing some research into electricity meters to try to determine what kind of hardware might be seen on the outside of a building in the early 1950s and came across this site which has some interesting pictures of utility crews, poles, transformers and so on: http://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Power_Distribution.html

If you click on the Museum link, the page has a lot of topics to do with power and water utilities in LA.

[Adrian Wintle]

In Ontario a single solid yellow line is permissable if the speed limit is below 70 km/h, otherwise it must be a solid double yellow line.  The following website has the Ontario guidelines - http://www.directtra...eful-documents/ - and the yellow line rule is page 36 of book 11.

 

This may be the rule, but it is mostly honoured in the breach. I frequently drive on roads with 70 or 80km/h limits and single yellow lines.

 

Adrian

[highpeak]

A useful and often amusing source for information about (mostly) cars of various eras is http://www.curbsideclassic.com/welcome-to-curbside-classics/

 

This link appeared in a thread on cars on here in early 2013, I thought I'd add it here too http://www.lov2xlr8.no/broch1.html

 

We also kicked the tires of a few models on this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/78335-north-american-automobile-models/

[john new]

Road Markings PDF: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/part3.pdf

 

 

Pete.

Excellent link. This page seems to have links to all the signage requirements.

 

https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2/pdf_index.htm

 

 

(NB Edited post - link answers my initial question)

Edited July 27, 2017 by john new

[autocoach]

Another way of suggesting a location and era is (if your eyesight is better than mine) with vehicle license plates. These have typically changed considerably over the years.

For instance, when I moved to Connecticut in 1980, our plate was white letters on a blue background. And that is singular, from 1980 onwards you only got one plate to be attached to the rear of the vehicle, the front bumper had no plate. The state went back to issuing two plates in 1987. Then in 2000 they changed the colors to navy blue letters on a white/blue background, all the old plates were replaced over a couple of years.

 

One big difference between the US and the UK is that the plate stays with the owner when you sell the vehicle, it doesn't go with the vehicle. You can see quite old permutations of letters and numbers on new vehicles, unlike the UK where the plate was/is a way of telling the age of the vehicle.

 

We also have a fair variety of plates. My 1979 MGB has an antique plate, black letters on a white background. In CT, vehicles over 25 years old are eligible for these plates, so a model MGB with that kind of plate says the year has to be somewhere past 2000 or so. If the MG was representing a newish vehicle, then the plate would be white letters on blue background.

 

There are a lot of differences between the UK and the US when it comes to plates. A trailer has its own registration and does not carry the same plate as the tractor unit, and may not even be registered in the same state given the nature of the trucking business. Vanity plates have been a lot more liberal over here, CT allows any combination of 7 characters (used to be 6) as long as it wasn't obscene and wouldn't be confused with a normal plate. So if you like to have talking points, a fast car with BLUBYU as a plate might work for you.

Digging further into the minutia, municipalities in CT have their own plate number sequences, offering another way of subtly establishing fairly precisely where in the US we are (if you can read the damned little plates). A pickup truck with a heap of tarmac in the back, a CT plate saying 73 BR and a couple of guys fixing a big pothole says we're in Branford and it's probably spring time. That's another seasonal clue you could add to the roads: in the snow belt we chuck so much sand and salt on the roads that around about April or whenever it seems like we've seen the last of Old Man Winter you'll see the highway crews out with a street sweeper and a truck behind it for protection cleaning up the reminder of the winter. Town crews deal with local roads, state DOT does the state highways, at least in CT.

 

As expected, Wikipedia has an overview [url[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_States[/url] with state history available on at least some of the links, but the images appear to be incomplete on some pages.

 

This might strike some as being a kind of rivet counting exercise, but I've seen some excellent efforts on layouts on this site to suggest time and place, and offer these ideas to help those who like this sort of thing.

Plates staying with owner is not always the rule. In California they do not unless they are vanity plates or ancient used cars or you refuse to pay for new plates.   New plates numbers are assigned by the state DMV in Sacramento although some dealers can get them directly from a local DMV office.  You can now order black and gold (yellow) vanity plates with numbers in the AAA NNN format as well as your choice of obscure text.  There is no area location associated with California license plate numbers. A lot of people leave the dealer plate holder on the back which may give you a clue where the driver is from.  And then with changes in ownership it may not.  

 

And we are about or already have rolled over to a new number prefix.  7ZZZ999 either has been issued or will be within a few weeks and the next series is 8AAA000. Plates with zeros are issued.  As cars can last forever in California where they do not necessarily rust out with no snow and road salt and unless you live within 2 miles of the coast, the question is what will happen after 9ZZZ999?  

 

Maybe just an RFI tag mounted on or in the car and no plates? If we convert from the current petroleum fuel based taxation to fund road maintenance to mileage based use tax with electronic monitoring things could be different. Out of state drivers would be required to obtain an electronic mileage tracking device at the California border.  Similar devices are in use already all over the state as Fastrak transponders for collecting road and bridge tolls.

Edited July 31, 2017 by autocoach

[Adrian Wintle]

In Ontario the plates (front and rear) can stay with the owner or can be replaced. It is a case of what type of transaction was done. I have had the same plates on the last 4 cars since, in the last three cases, I traded in the old car so the plates were just transferred. The previous two cars lost their plates because I didn't trade in the old car so the dealership (understandably) wouldn't use the old plates since they were still registered to a vehicle outside of their control. This has been the case since at least the '70s. When the plates were of the form AAA NNN it was also possible to tell what region the original car was originally registered in. The changeover to NNN AAA (approx. 1987) also saw the central control of numbers so they were issued sequentially. They currently are of the form AAAA NNN (with the leading letter up to C) which has been the case since about 1998. The rear plate will also have a coloured decal in the upper right with the expiry month of the registration (pay more money, get a new sticker for 1 or 2 years).

 

Adrian

[298]

Bit late to the party but I've just dropped in looking for road sign information.

 

A very useful licence plate maker is here:

 

 https://www.acme.com/licensemaker/

[J. S. Bach]

On 31/07/2017 at 15:08, autocoach said:

 the question is what will happen after 9ZZZ999? 

A thought AAAANNN or NNNAAAA

[autocoach]

26 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

A thought AAAANNN or NNNAAAA

We start over 2 with a new color? Back to blue and orangy yellow (for gold) either blue letters on yellow/orange plate (1960's) or vice versa? 8 characters would make the plate characters too small to reliably read for the aging eyes of people reporting hit and run drivers.  Bar Codes?  OCR characters? Electronic illumination to light up when going to slow or too fast?  Will technology come up with a way to eliminate license plates altogether such as mandatory transponders in highway vehicles.  I can use my key fob to flash lights and find my car today amongst all the other dark metallic grey SUV's in a vast parking lot.  

 

 I don't see us really changing the size and shape of the currentl plate which is pretty standard plate for all the Americas as far as I know.  California plates are still made in the state prison system but lot of other states plates are changing to printed plastic rather than stamped metal these days. 

Edited May 2, 2019 by autocoach

[dave1905]

The states cycle through the number and letter combinations, plus many states change their plate background design or colors every several years.  Last time I was in Texas, there were at least 4 different plate designs running around of the "base" plate.  In Nebraska there is a base plate design and at least 6-8 custom designs that support non-profit organizations.  For example I have a plate that support the UP Railroad Museum (which is ironically in Iowa) that has a picture of UP engine on it, the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo has an elephant, a wildlife fund has a cougar.  In addition several of the Native American nations have their own plates.  Also in Nebraska there are two different numbering schemes.  Cars registered in the Omaha and Lincoln area counties have an AAA-NNN number, when the rest of the counties have a 2 digit county number followed by letters and numbers (NN-ANNN).