Inkscape road signs

[Conekicker]

Very nice, if somewhat on the large side, even at 150mm 'x' height!

Note that it's generally HE policy to not sign trading estates from the SRN these days. The assumption being that delivery drivers and the like are given instructions as to how to get there with whatever delivery documents they go on the road with.

The garden centre is another one that shouldn't usually be signed either.

[Chris5156]

The garden centre is another one that shouldn't usually be signed either.

Given that it's the "High Legh Garden Centre", and "High Legh" is also signed down that arm of the roundabout, you can assume drivers will follow "High Legh" to find the garden centre of the same name. I'd only think it requires its own signs at the point where High Legh is signposted one way and the garden centre another.

[Conekicker]

The garden centre is another one that shouldn't usually be signed either.

Given that it's the "High Legh Garden Centre", and "High Legh" is also signed down that arm of the roundabout, you can assume drivers will follow "High Legh" to find the garden centre of the same name. I'd only think it requires its own signs at the point where High Legh is signposted one way and the garden centre another.

Yes, that would be an acceptable justification to sign it.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Note that it's generally HE policy to not sign trading estates from the SRN these days.

Only trading estates or industrial estates as well?

Thanks for the advice too, here's some amended signs. I thought I'd add in High Legh to the second sign since most of the content on it has been removed, and it's more of a local destination.

[Conekicker]

Note that it's generally HE policy to not sign trading estates from the SRN these days.

Only trading estates or industrial estates as well?

Both. Oh and business parks as well for that matter.

[Bryn666]

Note that it's generally HE policy to not sign trading estates from the SRN these days.

Only trading estates or industrial estates as well?

Both. Oh and business parks as well for that matter.

Thinking strategically, Knutsford (and High Legh!) traffic should have come off at J19 anyway onto the A556, so I'd be inclined to avoid signing anything down the A50 arm other than the services... it certainly doesn't get signed off the motorway mainline (Lymm does).

[Nathan_A_RF]

That's a good point too actually! I forgot the A556 got upgraded to a higher standard. Should be quicker now to divert traffic through Mere to get there. Now I can save a lot more space on the signs, if I can find a better place to position the Lymm patch that is.

EDIT: Having looked at the map, this sign is on the slip road of both the M6 & M56 at the junction, so it's fair to say the A50 panel should stay for the benefit of traffic from the M56.

[Big L]

Thinking strategically, Knutsford (and High Legh!) traffic should have come off at J19 anyway onto the A556, so I'd be inclined to avoid signing anything down the A50 arm other than the services... it certainly doesn't get signed off the motorway mainline (Lymm does).

If you could access the B5569 directly off the junction 19 roundabout I would agree, but since you now have to go via a very busy signalised roundabout, a short stretch of lovely dual carriageway, a slip road, roundabout, and an unclassified (or not - depends on which map you use) road to get onto the B5569 via another roundabout to reach the A50 via traffic lights, then I would suggest junction 20 is easier.

[Bryn666]

Thinking strategically, Knutsford (and High Legh!) traffic should have come off at J19 anyway onto the A556, so I'd be inclined to avoid signing anything down the A50 arm other than the services... it certainly doesn't get signed off the motorway mainline (Lymm does).

If you could access the B5569 directly off the junction 19 roundabout I would agree, but since you now have to go via a very busy signalised roundabout, a short stretch of lovely dual carriageway, a slip road, roundabout, and an unclassified (or not - depends on which map you use) road to get onto the B5569 via another roundabout to reach the A50 via traffic lights, then I would suggest junction 20 is easier.

It's still quicker than going 10 miles out of your way.

[Big L]

I have put Knutsford Services to High Legh village hall into Google Maps.

Via A556/A50 is 5.1 miles 10 minutes; M6 J20 / A50 is 8.9 miles 12 minutes.

So it's 4 miles out of the way and 2 minutes longer.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Just on a little side note, does anyone happen to know if there are any complete typeface sets in svg out there? I've used the pdf of each font file (one requested under FOI) but the characters seem to be bolder than they should. Trouble is, although font files I have may have the letters, they don't have the backing tiles for spacing so that's not good for creating proper signs.

[Bristol]

You can open the official PDFs from the highways agency in inkscape, or pages of the TSM for that matter, and extract the letters in transport font as vector objects. I think at least one of those has the backing tiles.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Alas, albeit TSRGD 2016 has images of full character sets (including Gaelic characters but not Welsh?), these are gif images and cannot be converted to svg without using the method that got me the characters I have in the first place. Looking at the TSMs only confused me as to what colours should be used! (I'm still going to use the colours from here)

[Bristol]

The ones at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. ... awings.zip contain a ZIP file with a PDF of each alphabet inside. I opened one in inkscape, and it let me select the individual characters and bounding boxes as vector objects.

[Nathan_A_RF]

I've been converting that file to an svg and then opening it. Didn't think it'd open straight from the pdf! Thank you.

Meanwhile, here's a Welsh sign I was amazed to see had it's own working drawing on the Welsh Government website (here) so I recreated it (Ignore the mismatching times; I used the times from the drawing).

[Conekicker]

Just like that nonsense they have on the A1 up around Newcastle. What is a "slow vehicle"?

Is there a main page for those Welsh working drawings please?

[Nathan_A_RF]

I can see where they were going with this, but surely at this point it's sign clutter and to get these standardised there'd need to be all sorts of legislation to distinguish whether a vehicle is fit or not. Perhaps an "agricultural vehicles prohibited" sign with S28 would be better, but then it wouldn't prohibit vehicles like the excavator depicted. Why not just get rid of it!

Anyway, the diagrams for Wales can be found here. Rather fittingly, there is one question about one of these that I have and it's about this sign. It appears the Welsh have created a new motorway permanent font character, or perhaps they've stretched the G and n from transport medium. Is it either of those?

[Conekicker]

Anyway, the diagrams for Wales can be found here. Rather fittingly, there is one question about one of these that I have and it's about this sign. It appears the Welsh have created a new motorway permanent font character, or perhaps they've stretched the G and n from transport medium. Is it either of those?

Thanks for the link but it looks like that's only for bi-lingual versions of signs already prescribed, not new things like the slow vehicles nonsense (the correct way to sign such a restriction would be via a minimum speed limit, with the signs being variable, so that restriction could be imposed and removed as required).

As for the compass points, the translations are shown on this Working Drawing but only in Medium:
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/p ... y-sign.pdf
Presumably they've got one somewhere detailing the characters in Motorway (white and black?).

[Nathan_A_RF]

Yes indeed all of the signs are just bilingual versions of normal TSRGD ones, with the exception being a drawing of the slow vehicles sign and a drawing of the excavator symbol in it. In fact I've already asked for details of the (Gn) & (Dn) characters in motorway (and some large brackets) from the Welsh Government but they replied saying "this can be found in sign design software". Not helpful for me...

EDIT: this sign erected ~2011 (way after the working drawing's date of 2004) show (W) & (Gn) as per the drawing, but in Transport Medium instead of Motorway. Even more peculiar.

[Conekicker]

Yes indeed all of the signs are just bilingual versions of normal TSRGD ones, with the exception being a drawing of the slow vehicles sign and a drawing of the excavator symbol in it. In fact I've already asked for details of the (Gn) & (Dn) characters in motorway (and some large brackets) from the Welsh Government but they replied saying "this can be found in sign design software". Not helpful for me...

EDIT: this sign erected ~2011 (way after the working drawing's date of 2004) show (W) & (Gn) as per the drawing, but in Transport Medium instead of Motorway. Even more peculiar.

Your edit - I'd guess that might be down to whatever software was used maybe didn't have the bracketed Welsh compass point in it. Which, given the lack of a comprehensive Working Drawing detailing the characters, is understandable. Whether all commercially available sign design software has the full range of characters, given the apparent lack of a Working Drawing for the vendors to create the characters from, is another matter...

I'm more intrigued with the star EDR symbol, who thought that was a good idea?!

You could always use a PDF to DXF converter to get the available characters into a CAD format. They'd likely be a bit on the crude side and would need smartening up but it's do-able.