4th Ring Road (Beijing) - Signs

Signs

When it was opened by 2001, the 4th Ring Road's signs were plagued by inconsistency. Mixing of Hanyu Pinyin and English on the signs confused drivers, but what was most confusing was the exit numbering. It so happened that the same exit had two different exit numbers—one for each direction of the ring road.

Beijing authorities had three years' lapse before they dealt with the problem. Old signs were progressively replaced by newer signs which had standardised English and, finally, a new exit numbering system was in place. A sketch map of each exit, formerly only for expressways and isolated spots, was also introduced along with the new sign numbering.

Another change was the use of traffic sign language to signal traffic regulations instead of relying completely on Chinese Hanzi. Some bridge names (e.g. Sihe Bridge) are also getting a name change at the same time.

The project was somewhat Herculean since 441 signs were to be replaced. Of those, exit and entrance signs formed 202 signs; other, mainly larger-sized signs, formed the remaining 239 signs. Earlier in the summer of 2004, similar measures for the 5th Ring Road (which had an absent-to-chaotic exit numbering system) were announced.

In a show of speed, within the first 100 hours, new exit numberings went up for pretty much all of the western stretch of the 4th Ring Road (despite new/old signs being alternated on a different stretch of the ring road).

Reaction to the new signs are mixed. There is a definitive plus side: the exits are now matched with their equivalent exit/bridge names on the 3rd and 5th ring roads. Unfortunately, many complain of an information overkill. Signs are now complex enough to hold five different directions (on some bridges) -- way too much for the eye and brain to digest. Meanwhile, the mixing of lowercase and uppercase English in small font sizes is another concern.

Bad news for speeders: on both the 4th Ring Road and the 5th Ring Road, quite a number of speed traps—cameras—were put into place, along with the general sign change overall.