Urban Motorways
133. We have not considered the signposting of urban motorways in detail, but the recommendations we have already made are generally applicable to urban as to rural motorways. The main distinguishing features of the urban motorway will probably be the closer spacing of junctions and the fact that it may be carried for some distance by a viaduct, so that there may not be room for the roadside advance direction signs we have recommended for most junctions. We have devoted a section of this report (paragraphs 122-125) to the signposting of closely spaced junctions. On viaducts, overhead signs may be the only possible way to present the necessary information in lettering of adequate size, and as we have pointed out in paragraph 124, we have already recommended three alternative forms of overhead sign (figures 35, 36 and 45) which we think will be found suitable.
Miscellaneous Signs
Signs for Service Areas
134. At intervals of some miles along most major motorways we understand that there will be service areas where travellers will be able to stop for fuel, refreshment or merely for a rest. Each service area will contain, as a minimum, one filling station (with facilities for emergency repairs) on each side of the motorway; transport cafe; vehicle parks; cafeteria; public telephones and toilet facilities. It may also include a restaurant. A covered footbridge over the motorway will link the two sides of each area for pedestrians, but motor traffic will not be allowed to pass across the motorway from one side to the other.
135. As with intermediate junctions, it is essential that drivers should receive sufficient warning to enable them to get into the left-hand lane in readiness to turn off the motorway to enter the slip road to the service area without endangering other traffic. We therefore propose that the approach to a service area should be signposted in the same way as the approach to an intermediate junction, with signs a mile and half-mile in advance and at the beginning of the deceleration lane leading into the slip road. We also think there is much to be said for the German practice of placing signs indicating the distance to the next facilities offered shortly after each point of entry to the motorway, and we consider that the practice should be adopted here.
136. We therefore recommend that the sign illustrated in figure 47 should, where appropriate, be erected after each intersection along the motorway. This sign is intended as a warning to a driver to leave the motorway at the next intersection if he requires one of the services available (particularly fuel), but is unwilling (or unable through lack of fuel) to travel the distance indicated to the service area. (It follows that it should not be erected after the last intersection before the service area .) We considered whether the sign should be erected before rather than after the intersection, both on the motorway and on the all-purpose roads approaching the intersection, but this would raise difficult problems of siting, especially as some intersections have as many as four different approaches along all-purpose roads; the message would have to be more complicated because not every driver passing the signs would be going on to the motorway, and it would also be necessary to give separate indications according
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