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Rich Carlson
3/13/00
Bristol, VA is the Nirvana of sign geeks. It has hundreds of individual shield shaped signs on the several state and US highways that converge here.
Bristol is actually 2 cities, divided by the TN-VA state line, which appropriately enough, runs along State street thru down town. While the Tennessee side uses regular regulation 24 and 36 inch square and rectangular state and US markers, the Virginia side uses almost exclusively shield shaped 16 inch signs for state and US route numbers. The few examples of current style signs I saw in VA were just west of the US-11 split.
RV Droz, the guru of US routes, had asked me to check on where the US-11W and US-11E split was. He was unsure if it was at the TN/VA State Line or not. I found it was actually about a mile or so north of the State Line in Virginia.
Bristol has an interesting structure over State Street just east of Downtown that welcomes visitors. It bridges the TN/VA line, but weirdly it welcomes people *leaving* downtown! I guess it is meant for those heading to a college on the east side of towns.
There is a large railroad depot along the Norfolk Southern tracks which appears to have been closed for years. I would not be surprised to see it get rehabbed for some other use soon.
The US highways in Bristol TN are part of the Tennessee Scenic Byways system, and marked with a unique banner over the route marker. These indicate a scenic route, and are used extensively all over the state.
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