Confused by the paltry "WEST" at Exit 177? As you'll soon see, it's not just this one sign. Plenty of EB button copy (and I-39 SB) heading to Janesville. Notice that the I-39 shield is a darker shade of blue, since it was a later addition to the I-90/94 assembly. NB in downtown Madison.īefore I leave Madison and ditch I-94, here's one more Scott Colbert photo with those characteristic black-background shields. Courtesy Scott Colbert, this is or was somewhere in Madison. With I-39, I-90, and I-94 all sharing the nearby roadway, maybe whoever put up this sign (WisDOT or someone local) didn't want to buy more shields, but couldn't fit all the numbers in this one, and gave up. In fact, the routes are so embarrassed, they all go into hiding. They meet old WisDOT standards - narrow shields, no EXIT ONLY border, exit arrow on the main sign - and mirror the new practice of squished 3-digit shields with thin borders, so it's really WisDOT that's embarrassing here as opposed to the signs themselves. I-94 WB meets I-90 WB/I-39 NB at Exit 138, just in time for these embarrassing signs. and the ones on the first sign don't even have white outlines! Besides the fact that the quality screams "Retarded chipmunk!", I'm intrigued by the lane add immediately after the interchange - why not let an incoming ramp add that lane for you? Oh, that would cost money, silly me. This style of EXIT ONLY with the large arrows, as well as the practice of shoving 3-digit US routes with 1's into 2-digit shields, are particular to (but not unique in) Wisconsin.Ĭontinuing EB with Scott Colbert, cool diagrammatics (well minus the lane lines), awful shields. Exit 135C, by the way, is High Crossing Boulevard. This photo is EB, courtesy Scott Colbert. What ugly shields those are, Grandma! And those numerals look a little tilted. Wausau definitely was tacked on, squeezing everything else into too-small spaces, and it's very possible that the sign originally read North WIS 78 (the old Portage bypass) before I-39 was extended. I-90's alternate seems to be via itself, and I-94 doesn't get one at all despite following I-90 for another 63 miles. The Cheesehead Law: every Interstate route has an alternate somewhere in Wisconsin, usually several. Why not a northern I-37? Duplication exists with east-west routes (and I-86 just happened, so it's not an outdated practice), it fits, and no multiplex needed. Since I-39 terminated in Rockport, IL, it thus embarked on a lengthy and needless multiplexing adventure northward (yes, I-90 and I-94 are E-W routes, but they have to rise up from Chicago). I-39 was added to I-90 and I-90/94 recently, when it was extended up the US 51 freeway to Wausau. Wisconsin likes putting Interstate shields on black squares, an anti-RIDOT if you will.
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