North vs. South

Who makes the signs on the Beltway? Or the Metro parking lots? So confusing!

This weekend, a good friend of mine was in town from California. He was flying out of BWI this afternoon, so I gave him a ride to the Greenbelt metro station so he could catch the bus to the airport.

After I dropped him off, I need to get back on the Beltway. I don't really know Greenbelt, but it's in Maryland I live in Virginia. So logically, that meant I needed to get on 495 South, right?

I followed the signs in the parking lot to get onto 495 South. They took me onto a fairly major street. Where I had to turn onto another street. And then another street. And then another. Not exactly nearby. It must have been at least a mile to the Beltway. Since I had gotten to the parking lot in much less than a mile, I was confused. But the signs kept coming and so I followed them.

When I got to the entrance to the highway, I actually had both options - 495 South and 495 North. On the sign for 495 South, the sign said Washington DC and Andrews AFB. On the sign for 495 North, the sign said Baltimore and College Park. When I saw those signs, I realized that 495 South was going to go east around the city, while 495 North would go west. Virginia is on the west side of the city. So I actually had to get on 495 NORTH? It's just so strange.

I guess sign makers have the philosophy of putting one town that relative near and one town that's further away on each sign. I personally find this confusing. College Park and Baltimore are nowhere near where I was headed. But neither are Andrews AFB or DC. If I hadn't realized that I really wanted to go west and not east, and that the South option was also going to go east, those signs wouldn't have helped. Would it have been that difficult to put NoVa on one of the signs? Or at a minimum make the sign say 495 South/East and 495 North/West. Because shortly after I got on 495 North, it split between 95 NORTH and 495 WEST. The North part was really all about Baltimore. Everything else was really West.

I vote for new signs.