Guide and Informational Signs
Guide signs help you navigate and find services; they do not command or warn. They are typically green with white legends for destinations and routes, blue for motorist services, and brown for recreation and cultural points. White-on-green signs give route numbers, exit directions, distances to cities, and lane assignments for destinations. Blue signs point to gas, food, lodging, hospitals, and rest areas. Brown signs mark parks, trails, campgrounds, and historic sites.
Interchange signing deserves attention. A guide sign may show an exit number, a destination, and an arrow indicating the lane or direction. Overhead lane signs tell you which lane serves which destination; a curved arrow means the lane turns, a straight arrow means it continues. Mileposts on Alaska highways are reference markers used to locate incidents and services, not speed or distance-to-go signs. Route markers vary: the interstate shield, the U.S. route shield, and state route markers each identify a different system.
Traps: treating a green guide sign as a regulatory command (it directs, it does not require); confusing blue service signs with warning signs; assuming a brown sign marks a hazard; and misreading exit-only lane arrows. Another common trap is reading a destination distance as an exit distance.
Worked example: an overhead sign shows a straight arrow over the left two lanes labeled with a city name and a right-curving arrow over the right lane labeled "EXIT ONLY." If you want the city, stay in a left lane; if you stay in the right lane you will be forced to exit. Plan the lane change early rather than at the gore point.