Beyond Opinion

I live south of Richmond, Virginia, and frequently go to meetings north of Richmond. On some of these I go up I-95, turn onto I-64 and then immediately get off at the next exit, which is Staples Mill Road, which is also US 33. The first thing that confronts me is a fork in the road and signs saying east, to the left and west, to the right. OK, except that this is not an east-west road. It is a north-south road. Well maybe it is east-west elsewhere. No. If you look at a map of Richmond, you will see that US 33 goes north and south with just a little bit of a northwest to southeast tilt. I got confused by this sign at first, but then remembered which way was which, and thereafter I ignored the signs. I now see that someone has written the Richmond Times-Dispatch about it, and all the newspaper's highway columnist did was to call Jeannette Coleman of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and get an answer from her that was not helpful. She said she consulted an engineer on the matter and that they were going to keep the sign the same. I emailed her about it today and she gave me essentially the same answer. No addressing the possible problem that these signs cause, no explaining why the signs are east and west instead of north and south. She just said that they weren't going to change the signs.

These signs need to be changed. The road is clearly a north-south road, and a motorist following a map will notice the north and southness of it and will look for north and south on the exit signs. The motorist will get confused upon seeing east and west instead and try to figure out which is the right way, distracting him or her from watching the road. The result could very well be that the motorist takes the wrong direction, or even worse yet, have an accident. VDOT needs to change the signs soon.