Weston resident Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer- and Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist, and author of the bestselling biography ‘Empty Mansions.” He writes:
Have you or your visitors been confused by the new exit numbers on the Merritt Parkway? Have you noticed the haphazard way that the small “OLD EXIT” number signs vary in placement, from one exit to the next?
As you drive north from the New York line, the first sign for Greenwich at the new Exit 3 (3 miles from the state line), has no smaller sign saying “OLD EXIT 28.”
Exit 4 does have the “OLD EXIT” number on its first sign.
Exit 5 does not.
And so it goes, with “OLD EXIT” markers for a little more than half the first signs for exits between the New York line and Westport.
Exit 42 — er, 21 — does have an “Old Exit” sign 1/2 mile away.
Confusing drivers further, many of the exits have no “OLD EXIT” number at the most important new exit sign: the one where you have to make a go-or-no-go decision to move into the turn lane to make the exit. (Perhaps astonishing other drivers by first putting on your turn signal.)
Yet nearly all the exits do have an “OLD EXIT” number placed right after it’s too late the make the turn — after the exit lane has already split completely from the parkway.
But that sign is often not visible. It’s blocked by the back of the “WRONG WAY” sign placed right next to it, to warn wrong-way drivers.
This sign comes after drivers have already had to make a decision. (Photos/Adrian Mueller)
Most GPS systems have caught up to the new exit numbers. Other systems have not.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation publicized an email address for questions and comments about the new signs: DOT.TrafficEngineering@ct.gov.
So I asked, why not put the small “OLD EXIT” numbers on every new sign? And why do some exits have the “OLD EXIT” on the first sign, when others do not?
I received a kind reply from Tyler Clark, a transportation engineer. He copied senior engineer James Massini and supervising engineer Barry Schilling.
Clark said drivers want fewer signs.
“For the ‘OLD EXIT’ signs, it has been our practice to put one sign at an advance guide sign (1/2 mile or 1 mile type sign) and one sign at the gore (sign at the location where the ramp has split from the mainline),” Clark wrote.
“From our experience, less tends to be more. We have received more complaints about having too many signs, than not enough.”
The “gore” he refers to is an old word for the point at the crotch between the two legs of road and exit ramp. In other words: too late.
The DOT did not say why the signs vary from exit to exit as to whether the first sign has an “OLD EXIT” number.
Nor why the most important sign — the one at the point where drivers have to make a decision — usually does not have that “OLD EXIT” number.
Nor why the only sign that always has the “OLD EXIT” number is the one when it’s already too late to make the turn.
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Frustrating, yes! My question is, why did the DOT have to renumber the exits? Weren’t the old numbers good enough for all the years since the Merritt was engineered?
It was part of federal legislation mandating uniform numbering across the country, based on distance from a starting point (in this case, the New York border). I-95 in Connecticut will follow, probably next year.
While I continue to question the underlying logic behind the exit numbering change, I can accept it as just another bit of governmental waste and change for the sake of change.
What I find hard to accept is the lack of an old exit sign on the most critical exit sign—the one at the “gore” or decision point on the highway.
The lack of old exit information at that critical decision point will lead to new hazardous situations from abrupt turns from drivers second guessing whether to exit or continue on.
The state representative’s response that drivers want fewer signs may be true in general, but the lack of old exit information at the critical decision point on the highway is exactly where one is essential.
I agree with the safety comment of Paul Rohan but who is passing our comments onto the “people”doing the signage?
Gotta waste taxpayer money somehow. You know someone made $$$ off it. Wonder if anyone can connect the dots.
I find the entire premise of this revisionist sign strategy regrettable if not idiotic. I’m 73 and no one would dare call me “old”. Most thinking people call me “mature” or “elderly”. I prefer immature (and my actions support that – I am not a hypocrite). Signs are no different than people. Calling a sign old is insensitive. When the portable saunas (featured in yesterday’s 06880) with beautiful women manning them are opened on the south beach, I’ll be the first in line. That makes me young.
💯 confused me going to Greenwich and I am new to the area!
The numbering was accomplished throughout Massachusetts a couple of years ago without fuss. For me I utilize GPS mapping and really don’t pay too much attention to signs you speak to.
Westporters are much more intelligent, perceptive and caring than people in Massachusetts. You have to think ahead before you launch a broad “rebranding” initiative like this.
Supposedly the man in charge of plantings when the Merritt Parkway was under construction walked the entire length of it. eyeing it to determine what plants should go where. The result was a beautiful road in keeping with the goal then of a “park” that automobiles moved through, a parkway. I wonder now if anyone in authority traveled the Merritt before or since the new signs were put in place, moving through with an open mind, thinking about how someone unfamiliar with the road, before and after the sign changes, sees it. Sometimes it’s good to “play dumb” so you don’t “do dumb”.
Anybody who is so familiar with the old exit numbers that this is confusing already knows where they’re going without needing them. People who aren’t familiar are navigating via GPS, which is already updated. Which means, the only people this could possibly confuse are people unfamiliar with the area navigating solely by directions given to them by someone purely from memory and without either side referencing a digital source on their phone to confirm the route, and I have more thumbs than people that fit this description.
Furthermore, this change has been or is being implemented on highways across the country, for all of the logical reasons that have been mentioned. And yes, it vastly improves the driving experience, for when I need to get off at exit 30 and I just passed exit 27, I know I have 3 miles until my exit. No need for additional signage to help me with that math.
That this continues to be a source of complaint suggests people just want to find things to complain about.
I can’t believe the hand-wringing over this. It’s a sensible way to number exits that is the national standard. We’re catching up.
Now, if someone can just climb up to the Merritt from Bayberry Lane and hammer a couple of “Old Exit 43” signs into the ground, to preserve that little bit of history!
History? Isn’t that out of vogue?
Is the number on the last exit sign on Route 80, 2,900?