Interstate signs in Greensboro are changing again : News-Record.com : Greensboro & the Triad's most trusted source for local news and analysis

Sign, sign everywhere a sign. ... If you’ve driven on an interstate through Greensboro in the past year, you might have hummed the chorus from that song by the Five Man Electrical Band. Or wanted to.

Get ready for another switch in signs and travel lanes through the city. Interstate 40 Business, U.S. 421 and the city’s year-old Outer Loop are most affected as crews start changing the interstate signs here this week. Again.

No more Business I-40

Signs for Business I-40 will be taken down. And I-40 will be routed through the slower, straighter lanes of traffic through Greensboro with a 55 mph speed limit. U.S. 421 will move to the Outer Loop, which has a 65 mph speed limit.

“We expect the traffic counts to follow the Loop, and we expect it to go down in the valley,” says Mike Mills, division engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation division based in Greensboro. The cost for the project is $300,000.

Why the change?

Motorists kept getting lost while driving through Greensboro after the city’s Outer Loop opened last year, Mills says. And the DOT got complaints, including noise complaints from neighbors near the Loop. It was too confusing for many to navigate, especially when approaching the city from the west, from Winston-Salem.

“You’re traveling so fast and trying to look at all these signs, and people’s GPS systems are telling one thing, and they’re seeing another,” Mills says.

What stays the same?

Greensboro will keep Interstate 85 and Interstate 85 Business routed the same way. There will be no changes to Interstate 73, either.

Still confused?

In addition to the sign changes, workers will paint the road names on the asphalt to eliminate confusion.

And the DOT wants to install a sign that shows a map of the Loop and I-40 through Greensboro. The Loop, engineers say, will be the speediest way around the city most of the time.

Hal2

May 12, 2009 - 6:08 am EDT

Hmmmm...I wonder why the state budget is gone. How many new signs will this make in the last two years?! State workers shouldn't have to assist the government in paying for these kinds of blunders. The lack of thought and planning in the I-40/Business debacle has cost the state a lot of money. Has it cost anyone their job or are they still around to plan some more?

daveasphalt

May 12, 2009 - 6:22 am EDT

I hope that someone finally wakes up in Raliegh and cleans house throughout the DOT. The DOT has no money because of ill advised decisions such as this. Does anyone remember that one of the major reasons for building the loop was to take the congestion off "death valley"! This road has down that! However when you have a DOT that is ran by incompetent people who circle the wagons and close ranks whenever there is a problem, this is what happens. Does it surprise you that most of the DOT senior management either graduated from NC State or ECU!. Engineers make terrible decisions when they have to account for cost! Our new governor "BEV does EVERYTHING" PERDUE needs to separate herself and correct this mess! Then on to DSS!

rscott

May 12, 2009 - 8:36 am EDT

You appear to have really good ideas about cleaning house, and replacing them with smarter, more competent people. Hopefully those replacements will come from within the state's educational system; most likely an engineering school or construction management program at NC State or ECU. If you have an agenda against these schools based on other things, like maybe sports, then you probably went to UNC. Except your writing skills don't relay that high of an education. So you're probably a Carolina basketball fan.
I do know that if there is a lawsuit to be had, and probably should, where to go to find the lawyers; UNC.

May 12, 2009 - 1:41 pm EDT

RScott-your comments are truly spoken like a DOT employee. Ouch!
Sorry, I guess that is not good grammer either!

hopperfan

May 12, 2009 - 8:30 am EDT

Its just crazy they are switching I-40 back. The whole purpose of the loop was to ease congestion through death valley. DOT talks about complaints from confused motorist. I know why they were confused. Once I-40 was put on the loop, they didnt immediately replace the old I-40 shields with business 40. Thats DOT's fault for the confusion. They should have had the new shields made and ready to place before the loop southwestern loop even opened. So yea it can be confusing when you have two segments both designated as I-40. Its just a lame excuse for switching I-40 back. From what I heard is that the real reason for the switch was the loss of some business on the old route plus the convention center and coliseum would have less visibility. They wont admit that to the taxpayers though. They don't want to admit they wasted millions of taxpayers dollars to save a few businesses along the old I-40 route.

InventorNC

May 12, 2009 - 8:28 am EDT

It is worrisome that we are shunting traffic to Death Valley. Perhaps signs reading "55 MPH Ahead" and "65 MPH Ahead" would be helpful.

wreck86

May 12, 2009 - 11:42 am EDT

I'm not sure I see where this is an engineer's mistake. I would imagine a lot of the planning for this occured years ago before the proliferation of Tom-Tom's. If you know what direction you're heading or what major city is in the direction you're heading, its not too difficult to figure out the signs. However, I think a lot of people are trying to drive from memory of the old system, or as the guy interviewed said their GPS's are telling them something different than the signs. Engineer's can't predict everything, but give them data and they can usually figure out a solution.

May 12, 2009 - 12:29 pm EDT

well motorist are going to be even more confused because the News & Record has it wrong on their map graphic. They have I-85 going on the southwestern loop.

buzzman

May 12, 2009 - 12:45 pm EDT

I haven't had any problem at all navigating through all this. Why not? Because I'm paying attention to DRIVING my vehicle rather than talking on the phone, texting or what-have-you like the rest of you are doing.

May 12, 2009 - 2:24 pm EDT

Amen brother!

woodfactor

May 12, 2009 - 2:57 pm EDT

What a waste of money!!!! When I moved to Raleigh after college in the 1980's, I used to get twisted trying to figure out the inner vs. outer loop of the beltline - but I figured it out. Why would the state spend so much money making a safer I-40 - and then not route truckers and motorist to it? This is insane! I've been through the new section in GSO several times - and you know what, I have to be a bit smarter than my TomTom and read signs it can't see. We are raising a generation of GPS dependent, directional idiots.

Give the money for the "new" sign project to the educators!

whyus

May 12, 2009 - 4:53 pm EDT

This whole matter is disgusting, given that funds are being wasted that could be used on education. Wasn't education the big deal for Bev Perdue since she was a teacher? Ridiculous.

gso me

May 12, 2009 - 5:52 pm EDT

I couldn't agree more...if people would learn to stop following their TomTom so blindly, and actually read and use a little common sense, Death Valley would not be the new/old way through GSO. I have spoken with so many people whose primary knowledge of Greensboro is the cluster *(^(%^$^% that is Death Valley. Teach people to read a map, signs and stop rerouting the interstate time and again.

jhegyi

May 12, 2009 - 8:36 pm EDT

I certainly hope the N-R will be sharing these comments with the DOT. This is just plain stupid. The whole point of the loop was to get congestion off the in-town roads. Now because some jackasses who couldn't figure out they were buying a house next to an Urban Loop they're going to route it all right back through town. What a complete waste of time and money! Let's hope the DOT hears enough complaints to stop with stupidity.

jeffic_fail

May 13, 2009 - 4:33 am EDT

Epic DOT fail.

johnH

June 1, 2009 - 9:12 pm EDT

Well just when I thought NCDOT had gottten it right, they change the I-40 road route from the new loop back to the old (and harder to drive way). I am a Virginia motorist and I travel to either Winston-Salem or Harrisburg NC to see our children. The drive through "Death Valley" as you TarHeels call it, was a nightmare. Then the SW loop was completed and I-40 was relocated to it, that improvement has made the drive around Greensboro a piece of cake. Now I hope when I leave Winston-Salem driving east that I can determine where the loop turn off is and not get gaught up on the New-New I-40 route. I will have to retrain my thinking remember another route number at that point, when I now just follow I-40 to the US Rte 29N turn-off.

North Carolina is a little skimpy on road direction signs, often not having one until right at the junction, no preparatory signs to warn of a route change. This is especially true with the secondary routes. I believe our VDOT does a much better job in route signage.

news-record.com

GOVERNMENT