From ODOT:
(January 2006) ODOT plans to replace existing state highway signs
over the next year to improve the quality of signs and to promote
Oklahoma during the state's Centennial anniversary. However, we
do not have a schedule yet for when specific signs will be
replaced and will not take down the current signs until the new
ones are ready. During the replacement period, removed signs will
be recycled and are not for sale. This action saves taxpayer
dollars by reusing existing materials. It is a felony to remove
any road signs along a highway or interstate.
RVD
- Well, that's one down. The campaign against blandness
continues.
RVD: Before 2006, Oklahoma used yet another boring black-and-white circle. The Sooner State used to use a yellow diamond sign. On the top point of the old diamond was an OK, so it was added to this new-and-improved style state outline in a western style font. The outline is not dimensionally accurate, but it is instantly recognizable and allows room for one and two digit routes. A three digit sized sign would be even more accurate in representing the state shape.
This sign was contributed by Jeremy Lance, who maintains a Arkansas Highways page. His home state already has a great highway marker, so he looked across the border for a sign to improve. His design incorporates the 1970's era circle, while adding a state name in a font from a recent (1990's) license plate, and a Native American symbol commonly used in OK - behind the numbers.
From 'Jaguar' James Allen : I used the seal from the center of the state flag. I just think it looks cool.
From Travis Turner : This is a basic design of what I think Oklahoma's highway signs should be like. The all too common circle is boring, dull, and well, it just stinks. It makes Oklahoma look even more dull than it already does seem. What I did with this is take the existing "Muskogee Turnpike" logo, and go off of that creating what I think is a plain, but unique sign for Oklahoma. Based off of what Florida uses, with the break in the state as needed (for 3di's, and the wierdo 251-A highway I have no idea how they came up which spans a whole 6 miles between Okay and Ft. Gibson Dam), and even maybe throwing in some color for the few bannered routes that might exist every now and then (about the only place I've seen OK bannered routes is in Drumright with Truck OK-99), and I included a TOLL which OK-1 forms the nicely two-laned (one in each direction) Chickasaw Turnpike. The sign size would be the same for every amout of digits to accomidate the size of the shape. (Alabama signs always made me mad looking at 3di's and thinking, wow.. is Alabama bloated?), unfortanately, this makes the sign bigger than the normal circle shield that is there today. (Texas enlarges theirs as well, so if texas can do it, by golly, we can too!)
From Martin McMahon : I like the idea of using the state seal as part of the state highway shield, but the previous submissions seem to me too flashy. Too colorful. Besides, the seal itself has a great big circle within it that's perfect for the number. So I took the seal off our state flag and removed all color from it, leaving nothing but a solid white outline of the seal on a black background. It's still obvious what the outline is of, it's not soon to be mistaken for any other state, and it still leaves a large area for the highway number, still much larger than some other states.
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This page last edited Thursday, January 19, 2006