Editing Traffic sign (section)

===Dispute of standard typefaces for North American traffic signs===

In 1997, a design team at T.D. Larson Transportation Institute began testing [[Clearview (typeface)|Clearview]], a typeface designed to improve readability and halation issues with the FHWA Standard Alphabet, also known as [[Highway Gothic]], which is the standard typeface for highway signs in the U.S.<ref>{{Citation |title=Highway Gothic vs Clearview: Battle of the U.S. Road Sign Fonts |vauthors=((Pund, D.)) |year=2019 |url=https://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/a28903239/us-highway-sign-fonts/}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Research |vauthors=((ClearviewHWY)) |url=https://www.clearviewhwy.com/home/research/}}</ref>

The adoption of Clearview for traffic signs over Highway Gothic has been slow since its initial proposal. Country-wide adoption faced resistance from both local governments and the [[Federal Highway Administration]] (FHWA), citing concerns about consistency and cost, along with doubts of the studies done on Clearview’s improved readability. As stated by the FHWA, "This process (of designing Clearview) did not result in a necessarily better set of letter styles for highway signing, but rather a different set of letter styles with increased letter height and different letter spacing that was not comparable to the Standard Alphabets."<ref name=":0">{{Citation |title=Report on Highway Guide Sign Fonts |vauthors=((U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Office of Transportation Operations)) |year=2018 |url=https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/resources/interim_approval/ia5rptcongress/ia5rptcongress.pdf}}</ref>

The FHWA allowed use of Clearview to be approved on an interim basis as opposed to national change, where local governments could decide to submit a request to the FHWA for approval to update their signs with Clearview, but in 2016 they rescinded this approval, wanting to limit confusion and inconsistency that could come from a mix of two typefaces being used. In 2018, they again allowed interim approval of Clearview, with Highway Gothic remaining the standard.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Citation |title=Design and Use Policy for Clearview Alphabet |vauthors=((FHWA)) |year=2018 |url=https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/resources/clearviewdesignfaqs/index.htm}}</ref>