Ever seen a Two-Legged Pole? I hear it makes a great conversation starter. VT 103 goes south from US 7 just south of Rutland, and a reassurance shield says so not 50 feet from the intersection, but the SB BGS says it goes east. (It really does go southeast, to be fair.)
SB and NB respectively at VT 9, where there's a standard signal facing each direction, and then this curious assembly in the middle. Okay, so the left-turn signals are separate. That's strange, and only having two signals (green/yellow and red) is stranger. Strangest of all is a 3"-tall sign that is the only enforcement against turning on red. I'm pretty sure this is unenforceable based on the fact that people can legally drive without being able to read this from 30 feet away. Any sign erected by the town of Bennington since 2000 is now cracked all over. And not close to proper specs.
I came back to Bennington during Moosefest '09. Here's a moose. There are more at the link at bottom.
Depot St. NB. On the corner is a sycamore that's been growing since 1845.
What I have always believed is an old alignment of US 7 NB through a park in north Bennington.
A SB view and the park itself.
Looking at, south, and north along a former railroad paralleling US 7 to the west, still in Bennington.
NB on the north side of Bennington. The HISTORIC in the shield is standard practice for 7A, which is old VT 7. The A is supposed to be smaller than the number, though, so the 67A shield is wrong. On the overhead, the 7A shield is whited out by the flash (getting dark at the time), but does say HISTORIC like they all do. These shields are all circles, not the new green Vermont shields, because the routes are town maintained.
SB at the same spot. Cutting out a circular shield is certainly not standard practice.
Where US 7 meets the VT 67A connector, there were a bunch of ghost loops and ramps. These were recently paved in order to accomodate the new Bennington Bypass, which was completed to the west as VT 279 in the mid-2000s and opened to the south and east in late 2012 - eventually to be completed around the city as US 7. A Welcome Center is under construction in the middle of the strangely designed double-trumpet interchange. This photo is NB nearing the four-lane approach to the ghost interchange, courtesy Doug Kerr and gone now from the time before VT 279 was designated.
NB through the VT 279 interchange, alongside the unopened ramp that was supposed to take the Bennington Bypass WB to US 7 SB. I also take a look at the construction staging in the middle of the interchange. Eventually, this will be completed as a full interchange and the ramps will be rebuilt. The rest of the interchange and construction photos are covered on my VT 279 page (linked at bottom).
New SB signage for VT 279, off center and inconsistent. The second sign is very amateur.
US 7 is a Super 2 for most of its length south of Rutland, but just north of Bennington, it briefly becomes a four-lane freeway. This freeway was supposed to extend north, which is why there is extra land cleared in this photo.
NB from Bennington by the dawn's early light.
I don't know why this is particularly notable, but VT signs it on the Super-2, here SB.
NB in Wallingford and Brandon. VT 140 is town-maintained west of the intersection; a proper shield would be oval, not circular.
SB in Rutland, one of those cases where the lower case text height was specified as 3/4 the upper case text height, so it was produced at 3/4 × 3/4 = 9/16 scale.
US 2 WB/US 7 NB, not that it shows, looking north on Willard St. from Main St. and then continuing north. The original color scheme for plaques and arrows when the new green shields were debuted in the 1990s was white on green, but this was quickly changed to green on white. I'm not entirely sure of the reason, but you won't find a reverse-color assembly that's not in some state of wear. From the ground, this may look like a simple wye intersection, but the connection from here to VT 2A is actually technically part of VT 127, otherwise a discontiguous route to the south that loops through Malletts Bay to Burlington. 127 used to come up Lakeshore Dr. to Bay Rd., which then fed into the south leg of the wye, while the north leg of the wye was part of VT 2A. There's no reason why both legs can't be part of 2A, except that there's also no reason to change designations because the signs and jurisdiction will both remain the same.
Why save the best for last? This little beauty used to sit atop the SB informational sign in St. Albans. It dated from the 1940's at the latest, and was possibly as old as the advent of US routes in 1926.
A rare BGS on a 2-lane surface road, and even rarer to be in button copy, NB and SB at the I-89 connector south of St. Albans.
NB in St. Albans. The old VT 36 assemblies are gone now.
On the southwest corner of the western VT 78 intersection in Swanton.Onto (Historic) VT 7A, old US 7
VT 7B, also old US 7
Into Massachusetts on US 7
Onto VT 103
Onto VT 9
Into Bennington and the 2009 Moosefest
To VT 67A
Exit 1 to current/future VT 279 and the ghost interchange
Onto VT 140
Onto US 2 in Burlington
To I-89
Onto VT 36
Back to Vermont Roads
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