This entry was posted on 12/26/2008 11:01 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
Hey, y'all. Christmas has passed and today (Boxing Day), GRG HQ is again open for business.
On our way to and from Reynolds Plantation last Saturday, Mary and I stopped for
lunch and gas at the following exit off I-20 in Morgan County...
I remember this exit from my childhood, as the caravan of Gwinnett County school buses shuttled us every summer from the Gwinnett County fairgrounds to Rock Eagle 4-H camp, just north of Eatonton on US 129/441/GA 24.
As you approach this exit from either direction, you are greeted by another big green sign...
I find that it is somewhat amusing that GDOT has crammed 2 more cities, 2 more colleges, and Antebellum Trail on this big green sign, but (for the most part) once you drive onto the exit ramp, you will not be shown which direction to go for any of the above places.
Before the interchange was renovated with a wider bridge for US 129/441/GA 24 traffic as part of the US 441 GRIP project, there were signs pointing you to the above cities and colleges. Instead, you get pointed only toward Madison and Eatonton, and GDOT assumes you know which way to turn for Athens, Milledgeville, the University of Georgia, or Georgia College and State University.
If I were to lay out the directional signage at the end of the ramp, here's how I'd do it....
FROM I-20 WESTBOUND:
Directional green sign #1... MADISON => ATHENS => UNIV OF GA =>
Directional green sign #2... <= EATONTON <= MILLEDGEVILLE <= GA COLL & ST UNIV
Additional brown sign... <= ROCK EAGLE <= LAKE OCONEE <= LAKE SINCLAIR
FROM I-20 EASTBOUND:
Directional green sign #1... <= MADISON <= ATHENS <= UNIV OF GA
Directional green sign #2... EATONTON => MILLEDGEVILLE => GA COLL & ST UNIV =>
Additional brown sign... ROCK EAGLE =>
LAKE OCONEE =>
LAKE SINCLAIR =>
Now that we've covered the directional sign issue, let's look at the following assurace marker signs just north of the interchange...
Notice that US 129 is mistakenly signed as a Georgia state highway instead of a US highway.
Now look at the picture below and tell me what is missing...
If you guessed "US 441", then you're right. In this particular case, GDOT should swap out the GA 24 sign for a US 441 sign of the same dimensions as the US 129 sign.
But wait, dear readers, there's more. Here's another sign located near the Chick-Fil-A just north of I-20...
On this sign, GA 24 has suddenly become a westbound route. Looking at a Georgia roadmap, it doesn't look like the above routes go in any kind of westerly direction. In this case, the "WEST" sign needs to go and either replaced with a "SOUTH" sign or the GA 24 shield needs to be moved up the pole to fill the resulting gap.
While we are here at the Chick-Fil-A, let's look at the following signs...
This is the point where the Madison By-Pass separates to take traffic around Downtown Madison.
Notice the "TRUCK ROUTE" sign. We show US 441 and GA 24, but what about US 129, guys?!!!!
On the overhead route marker signs, you may have noticed that US 129/441 goes toward Downtown Madison, and the by-pass is signed as US 129 By-Pass/US 441 By-Pass. Here's a close-up of the "BY-PASS" signs...
Normally, Georgia would've had the old US 129/441 converted to a business route and simply signed the by-pass route as the new US 129/441. Further up the road in Watkinsville (between Madison and Athens), US 129/441 was rerouted onto a newer 4-lane by-pass, but the old US 129/441 was re-signed as a business route.
Let's head back toward I-20, where we find the following overhead route markers...
Pardon the blurriness of the above image, but I wanted to present this to you to show that US 129 gets no mention.
Just south of the interchange, check out this particular route signage...
In this case, it's kinda nice to know that US 129 was not forgotten, but out of the respect it is due as a US highway, it needs to be placed to the right of the US 441 shield and said shield needs to be of the same dimension as its sister US route. The GA 24 shield should be moved to the position currently occupied by the small US 129 shield.
Based on most of the above photos, it seems that US 129 and the late Rodney Dangerfield have one thing in common... no respect!!!
Most of all, I found a lot of inconsistency in terms of route signage along this segment of highway and I encourage GDOT to address this matter, both here and in any other places around Georgia where similar inconsistencies exist.
BTW, tomorrow night at 9:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, I will be hosting a new episode of "GRG On BTR" live from GRG HQ and hope that you will listen.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading and please come back often.
12/29/2008 2:01 AM
Preston wrote:
I was on I-20 east on Saturday morning and saw the Madison exit (exit 114). I noticed the one directional sign where they crammed all those cities such as Athens on it. Probably because it's on a US highway and people don't want to get lost, they wanted to place all of them on it. They even managed to include the Ga. colleges on the sign. They never had something like that before when it was only the parks on the brown directional sign. But on a positive note--they did an excellent job building new interchange bridges from exits 98 to 130 on I-20 between 2002-2003, replacing those 30-year old bridges of before. Reply to this
1/9/2009 3:52 PM
Lance DeLoach wrote:
Anyone have a photo of the intersection of Georgia 20 with Georgia 10?
As for the signage errors, contact the nearest GDOT office. I've done this B4. Reply to this
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