An open letter to the National Highway Administration

To whom it may concern:

Before I get to the point of this letter, I would like to commend you on a job well done. I can imagine that planning, creating and maintaining a system of roads is a monumental task, and to do it successfully -– while dealing with the millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that interfere with your progress –- is nothing short of incredible.

Construction is an issue, there’s no doubt about that, but that is not where my criticism lies (at least not today, anyway). I want to deal with a separate issue altogether, and that is the issue of signage. More specifically, though, this is in regards to the signage for various roadside conveniences such as gasoline, lodging and restaurants.

First of all, I think it’s great that American motorists are informed of their options while traveling. We live in a fast-paced world, and wasting time searching for the closest Waffle House or Cracker Barrel is, frankly, not an option –- which brings me to my point:

If a sign indicates that a certain convenience store is available at the next exit, it better be available at said exit and not a couple of miles away.

Driving from Richmond to DC this past Sunday, I needed to do two things: relieve myself and get some coffee. Somewhere in Northern Virginia, cruising along 95, I saw a sign for Wawa, a place I happen to be quite fond of. “Perfect,” I thought, “I’ll stop here, be in, out and on my way rather quickly.”

Off the exit I got, and as I approached a stop light, a sign politely informed me that getting to Wawa would require taking a left. So I took a left, drove for approximately three-quarters of a mile and saw another sign, this one informing me that I now had to take a right. And so I did that. And then I drove for another mile or so, at which point I was greeted by another sign: the words “WAWA” with a little arrow pointing left.

Good gracious.

When I finally arrived at my destination, I had hit 5 traffic lights, taken 6 or 7 turns and traveled approximately 2.5 miles from my original exit (which, needless to say, I would have to do in reverse to get back on the highway).

I realize that I’m being a bit of a stickler here, but doesn’t this defeat the purpose of “convenience?” If I’m on the road, my goal is to get from Point A to Point B, not from A to X to Y to X to B. If I had known that my detour would take me 20+ minutes, I would’ve waited until the next exit.

As I stated earlier, people appreciate knowing their options. What people don’t appreciate, however, is being lied to. Wawa was not at all convenient to the exit I took on Sunday, and therefore should not be on the sign in the first place.

In the future, I ask you to consider (or re-consider) the distance that each “attraction” is from the point of exit. I’ll even be so kind as to help you out with a little system I’ve come up with:

If it’s less than a mile, it goes on the sign. If it’s between 1 mile and 2 miles, it goes on the sign if it’s in the middle of nowhere and there are little to no other options. If it’s more than 2 miles, that “convenience” store should be left to the locals (since, let’s be honest, we probably wouldn’t want to use their pisser anyway).

Sound good? Great! I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.

Toodles,

MWP