Massachusetts to renumber highway exit numbers so you know how far you are from where you're heading

It saves money too in the long run. When you add a new exit, you just make a sign for the mile marker, vs trying to 'fix' numbering every decade

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Why would you want box trucks on the Emerald Necklace? Next thing you know we'd be driving on driveways and parking on parkways. Somethings make too much sense to change.

This is the most completely ass-backward way of looking at the question of "how far to the exit" that I can imagine.

I would much rather know I'm taking the third exit than some unknown number of miles before that exit.

Really? You'd rather know how many arbitrarily-spaced features will pass than exactly how many miles are left? 4 is not easier to keep track of than 37, if #s 2 and 3 are right on top of each other, or share an off-ramp. Miss one, and you're likely to be stuck driving to the next one, however far down the road it is, then driving back. If you know your exit is 37, and you're at Exit 25, you can relax for 10 miles. I have to believe you like the current system because you're familiar with all the routes you use, so you don't actually use the exit-number relationships at all.

Roadside mile markers are no use in determining how far to your exit, unless you know what mile the exit is at. You can find that out in various ways, but the only convenient and safe way to do that while you're driving is if the exit number is the mile number.

This is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever encountered and I would have been extremely disappointed if it hadn't turned up in the comments here.

I would much rather know I'm taking the third exit than some unknown number of miles before that exit.

Thanks for not letting me down.

(PS: It's not "unknown". It's the number of miles between where you are and the exit number. There are signs that tell you the mileage where you are every 1/10 of a mile.)

Humans are pretty adaptable. You'll get used to it, grumbling all the way of course. But you won't have any choice.

Talk about solving a problem you don't have.

Yeah!

After all - when you get on the Pike, you stop at the toll booth and ask the friendly clerk what exit you'll need for whatever your destination. He'll tell you the exit number, how far it is, how much the toll will be, point it out on the little oaktag toll ticket where it says all of that, AND smile & say "have a nice day"

Don't forget to check the air in your whitewall tires before setting out and drain the water from your car radiator at night (it's getting down close to freezing in the hills these nights).

Happy Motoring!

(And do NOT get me started on that awful replacement for Highway Gothic...)

Not the same. Although FHWA did issue an Interim Approval allowing states to use Clearview, which was later rescinded and then reinstated (thanks to the Texas Congressional delegation), the Federal Government has never mandated that states switch from Highway Gothic to Clearview for highway signs.

And to put your mind at ease, the current Massachusetts Amendments to the MUTCD expressly forbid the use of alternative fonts such as Clearview on highway signs in this state.

Letter suffixes. An exit at mile 10.00 and another at mile 10.25 would be numbered 10A and 10B.