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**MAY 26, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

No Exit: Random Signs of the Times

****

As a good progressive, I defend the public sector. But every once in a
while, your government does something truly moronic, warming the hearts
of government-bashers everywhere.

If you live on the East Coast, you may have noticed that highway signs
have been renumbered-jettisoning the commonsense sequential system, in
which Exit 5 follows Exit 4, in favor of a lunatic scheme in which exit
numbers are a function of distance (from what random starting point the
hapless motorist can only guess). Thus, after Exit 5 might be Exit 38.

What genius came up with this? I was hoping it was some corrupt Trump
appointee, with stock in a company that manufactures highway signs.

But no such luck. The truth is even stranger.

Believe it or not, the requirement of exits based on distances was
mandated by the Federal Highway Administration
back
in 1970! And for half a century, the FHWA has been granting selective
waivers, in response to protests.

But in the last few years, FHWA has cracked down. At this writing, only
Rhode Island still has a full waiver. Almost everywhere else, the
motorist encounters exit signs on the interstate highway system mostly
based on distances. But not quite.

There are still exceptions for special cases, where sequential,
traditional exit numbers are deemed necessary for clarity. So the actual
system is a total crazy quilt.

And in some (but not all) places, you will also see a helpful (but too
small) sign advising you that Exit 59 is Old Exit 6.

Jesus wept! I can only guess how much money was wasted replacing highway
signs-money that might have gone for, say, repair of bridges. In
Massachusetts alone, the latest round of new signs cost $2.8 million.

If you add up all the highway exits, and the labor and material cost of
new signs, the national cost has to be in the hundreds of millions,
maybe billions. Some of the money in Obama's Recovery Act actually
went for replacement of sensible signs with nonsensical ones.

The current system is so thoroughly screwed up that even if Biden's
transportation secretary, the estimable Mayor Pete, called a halt to new
mandatory sign-swapping, we'd still be stuck with a legacy of
inconsistent numbering on different highways and even on different
stretches of the same highway.

If Uncle Sam wants the taxpayers to fork over new trillions in public
works, he has to do better than this.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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