NH: NH 38 in Salem

[froggie]

Mainly for Eric...

I've noticed a discrepancy with NH 38 in Salem, in the vicinity of the shopping mall there.

Currently, TM shows NH 38 east of I-93 continuing along Pleasant St, then turning east shortly on Main St to meet NH 28/NH 97.  This is supported by 2013 shapefiles.

However, signage shows NH 38 turning onto the loop road around the mall, and signage coming out of the mall confirms this, although there is no signage where the loop road meets Rockingham Blvd, and signage at Rockingham Blvd and NH 28 shows "TO NH 38".  Per GMSV, this signage has existed at least since 2012.

Open to thoughts/suggestions on whether to keep the list as-is or shift it to reflect the signage.

[yakra]

Looked around GMSV a little bit, and... Ow, my head.

[Duke87]

Bumping this discussion up since I drove NH 38 today and can confirm what froggie is saying. NH 38 is signed, quite consistently, turning off of Pleasant St onto Mall Rd, and then following Mall Rd around to its far end. There is also zero signage for NH 38 north of Mall Rd along the route currently shown in the HB.

Seems to me NH 38 should be moved onto Mall Rd. This is pretty clearly the routing.

The intersection with Pleasant St shows it as such.
Intersections along Mall Rd show it as such.
There are even reassurance shields.

Meanwhile the "TO" from NH 28 is logically resolved by placing the northern terminus at the intersection of Mall Rd and Rockingham Park Blvd. This is as far as there are any signs for NH 38 that don't have "TO" banners.

[froggie]

Unfortunately, this has now become a case of "do you believe the signs" vs. "do you believe the data".  While the signage is as discussed-above, it should be noted that NHDOT maps and GIS data (both snapshotted 2018) still have NH 38 following the routing as currently exists in the Highway Browser.

[neroute2]

Who put up the signs? If NHDOT, why does one hand override the other when they don't know what each other is doing?

[Duke87]

Oy.

Well, we consistently exclude routes which exist on paper but for which there are no signs. There are also cases where we have included routes for which there are signs but which do not exist on paper. And there is even precedent for following the signs for a route rather than the paper path for a route when the two actively disagree (see my notes on islth for a few examples).

All of this is logically consistent (follow what the signs say in all cases), so I'd think the same should apply here.

If it were one or two stray signs I might be inclined to write it off as DOT weirdness/error, but NH 38 is very consistently signed along Mall Road and very consistently not signed along its other paper routing. A driver attempting to follow NH 38, without any pre-journey consultation of what internal DOT paperwork says, will drive down Mall Road, and will not appreciate their clinch being disputed by what the HB shows.

(I drove both alignments so this does not impact me personally either way, but still)

[yakra]

Much like the west end of ME196 in Lewiston.
On paper, that's Lisbon St to, and Canal St from, US202.

I suppose this should probably be changed. Mumble.
Interesting that Mall Road is LEGIS_CLASS 5, or a local road; not something on the unnumbered state system.
I'll have another look around GMSV for good measure.

[froggie]

On the flip side, Anthony, we've all seen cases where "good" signage was put up on a clearly erroneous route or location.

I'm not convinced that NHDOT put up these signs.  My hunch is it's the town that put them up at the mall owner's behest.

An email has been sent to NHDOT for clarification.

[nezinscot]

NH38 is currently shown as following Pleasant Street, turning onto Main Street and ending at NH28 directly across from the start of NH97.

NH38 now turns off of Pleasant Street and follows Mall Road. Google Maps has it then turning left on Rockingham Park Blvd, and ending at the intersection with NH28. I did not notice any NH38 signs when turning left onto Rockingham Park Blvd.

GMSV shows the changes if the views are from late 2018 or later.

[Duke87]

Merged new topic with pre-existing one.

Froggie, did NHDOT ever write back about this?

[froggie]

No they didn't.  And I have doubts, given the COVID situation, that they would respond to a new email.

[yakra]

I'm with froggie:

I'm not convinced that NHDOT put up these signs.  My hunch is it's the town that put them up at the mall owner's behest.

Of particular note, Mall Rd itself is local road, and Pleasant St is locally maintained state highway.

This seems to be a case of a missing TO, only a bit more complicated than usual by the missing signage on the proper route.

A really big complication is that at state-maintained Rockingham Park Blvd and that big beefy flyover, signage very clearly includes the "TO".

Stupid truck routes!

[rickmastfan67]

Is this thread fully completed?  Just trying to mark some old threads (2+ years old since last post) as 'solved' so they can be moved to the other section.

[froggie]

I wouldn't call this one solved since we (unless Eric knows something) still don't have a clear response from NHDOT.