brown signs
Tzadik Vanderhoof
295), the signs are regular "highway sign green" near Baltimore, but a
few miles south of there they turn brown, like you'd see in National
or State park. Then right before the Capital Beltway, they turn green
again for the last mile or so. I've seen Park Police on that road so
it may have something to do with a National Park.
AKirsc5653
The parkways on Long Island used to all have brown or black guide signs, almost
always woefully inadequte, and for much much more than just the color (for
instance, there was never any advance warning.) They were all replaced in the
late 1980's or early 1990's...except for those on the Ocean and Bay Parkways
arround Jones Beach (which after all is a state park.)
:-) Andrew
Polkajig
The signs are brown and not green because MD Rt. 295 becomes the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway, but the main reason is because the parkway is
owned and maintained by the US Government. There are even some Government made
brown signs at the BWP/MD 201/DC 295 on US Rt. 50.
Greg Pniewski
Jim Wade
Usually on Long Island, brown signs are used for parks, and green
signs are used for roads.
Exile on Market Street
> conspiracy theorists :) As mentioened earlier, it's owned by the U.S.
> government. As I said, it is patrolled by Park Police... I've never
> seen state or local police on it. I looked at a map and it seems
> there is a thing strip of forest on each side along its length. You
> can tell that while you're on it, because you don't see buildings or
> other features for quite a while. There are also low brick walls on
> either side of the road.
Just a note:
The signs are brown *not* because the road is owned by the U.S.
government *per se*. They are brown because the government agency that
owns and maintains the road is the *National Park Service*.
The Gladys Noon Spelman Baltimore-Washington Parkway is an honest-to-God
"parkway," i.e., a linear park with a road running through it. The
MUTCD standards call for signs giving directions to, or within, parks
and recreational areas to have brown backgrounds -- hence the brown
signs where green ones would normally be located.
This is the same logic that led New York State to erect brown signs in
the 1970s on the Long Island parkways. Those have since been replaced
by standard green signs.
I note that tne NPS is inconsistent in applying this rule to its own
roads, however. Suitland Parkway, a limited-access road heading south
from Washington, is also maintained by the NPS, but the signs along it
are green. However, the lettering is still in the nonstandard Clarendon
Bold font used by the NPS.
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Polkajig
> Just a note:
other roads in the DC area I think that are maintained by the National Park
Service are the George WashingtonMemorial Parkwayand on the Clara Barton
Parkway.
Greg Pniewski
Bernardsvile, NJ
Paul S. Wolf
> Service are the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Clara Barton
> Parkway.
>
> Greg Pniewski
> Bernardsvile, NJ
They maintain those, plus the roads on the Mall in front of the various
Smithsonian museums, those in East and West Potomac Parks, including
Independence Avenue west of 15th Street, and the roads near the Lincoln
Memorial, Beach Drive and Rock Creek Parkway in Rock Creek Park, The
Ellipse, etc. They may LOOK like city streets, but the DCDOT doesn't
maintain them, nor does the DCMPD patrol them. MacArthur Blvd. in DC
and MD is maintained by the Corps of Engineers (due to the Washington
Aqueduct below the road).
--
Paul S. Wolf, P.E. mailto:pw...@traffpro.com
Traffic Engineer, Traff-Pro Consultants, Inc.
Member, Institute of Transportation Engineers
Kevin Robokoff
In WI there are big brown signs instead of big green signs at one exit
on WI-29 just east of Chippewa Falls going to Lake Wissota State Park.
The state park designation allows the *brown exit signs* to exist.
Kevin
747@junk.net scott
<smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Tzadik Vanderhoof wrote:
>
><snipped>
> > As I said, it is patrolled by Park Police... I've never
>> seen state or local police on it.
I've seen Prince George's County police pull over people on the BW
Parkway. I assume they had chased them from 450 or 193.