2/10 milemarkers on OH non-Interstates
Marc Fannin
extant in many states for some time, are
showing up all over Ohio urban areas now, including on non-
Interstates, as noted on http://www.roadfan.com/ohmm.html (US 33 is
the example for non-Interstates). I didn't have any personal
experience with this until a couple of days ago, when I got on Ohio 2
at the eastern end east of Painesville, and soon realized that there
were two distinct sets of milemarkers going, the previously-posted
ones which Ohio puts on non-Interstates for the most part (as in the
one pictured at http://www.roadfan.com/state1.jpg ), which have zero-
points at the south or west COUNTY line, and the ARTIMIS-style 2/10
markers whose zero-points are the south or west STATE line. While I
understand that if the ARTIMIS-style ones matched the ODOT ones,
there'd be a possibility of having, say, two or more SR xx EB Mile
4.2 posts, one for each county traversed. However, in the current
setup, there are two sets of unrelated milemarkers in both design and
placement which I think has just the same potential to be confusing
(IIRC the ARMITIS-style ones were in the 226-mile range on the left
when I passed an ODOT Mile 18 on the right in my situation). I would
think a compromise would be sufficient, such as listing the county
name between the route info amd mileage info on the blue markers -
right now someone could get two separate calls, one for an accident
at Mile 18 and one for an accident at Mile 226.2, and they'd be
referring to the exact same accident.
What do others think?
________________________________________________________________________
Marc Fannin|musx...@kent.edu or @hotmail.com| http://www.roadfan.com/
When I'm having a bad day, I can now think "Well, I could be Steve
Bartman...."
[Also posted at Yahoo! Groups GreatLakesRoads]
Paul S. Wolf
Since the 2003 OMUTCD, which closely matches the federal MUTCD, now
requires standard reference post signing on all freeways, measured from
the South and West beginning points of the state route, the new urban
reference markers (at the 2/10 mile spacing) obviously are placed based
on that standard. I assume they'll be adding standard markers on the
rural portions of the freeways in the coming months.
I'd bet that very few people, other than "roadgeeks" and ODOT
maintenance personnel even recognize the square white markers as
"mileposts". ODOT has never even considered them as traffic control
devices, since they were never covered in the OMUTCD or the Standard
Sign Design Manual.
--
Paul S. Wolf, P.E. mailto:pw...@traffpro.com
Traffic Engineer, Traff-Pro Consultants, Inc.
Member, Institute of Transportation Engineers