filed under: interpretation
Prepared for Metro Sustainability Center
This manual serves as a technical resource to guide parks and transportation agencies as they plan, design, and fabricate wayfinding signage along regional trails in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area.
by Mayer/Reed
Metro and its partners developed the manual in response to requests from the public for better uniformity and consistency of signage along regional trails. Additional impetus came with the advent of The Intertwine brand and the opportunity to give the regional trail system a unifying identity.
The guidelines are intended to be followed when signing off-street regional trails and on-street bicycle and pedestrian facilities that serve as the primary routes connecting one trail segment to the next. The manual gives guidance for sign placement, messaging and content, color, size, and font. It should be used when signing new trails for the first time or when replacing or retrofitting signs along existing trails.
Since it is primarily local parks and transportation agencies that will implement the signs, Metro and its partners felt that guidelines were more appropriate than standards. The guidelines are designed to offer flexibility to agencies that already have trail sign standards in place while also providing solutions for certain conditions where existing standards may fall short. For example, these guidelines embrace the increasing ubiquity and popularity of Oregon’s standard green bicycle directional sign and recommends its use along on-street bicycle connections, while acknowledging that the sign is not ideal for use along off-street trails since it is not intended for pedestrians and does not generate intrigue about The Intertwine.
With these guidelines, parks and transportation agencies can provide regional trail users an attractive, consistent sign system.
Published June 2012
Mayer/Reed, Inc. is a multi-disciplinary Portland, Oregon based design studio providing urban design, landscape architecture, product design and graphic design services for the environments in which people live, learn, work and play. Our studio’s work in creating places for human activity explores the social, cultural, ecological and historic contexts that shape these environments.
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