Navigational Intersection Markings Project
This Project is a straight-forward, no-frills effort undertaken to demonstrate the capacity to advance snowmobile trail navigation and safe riding in the Commonwealth.
In plotting and erecting navigational signs for intersections, the Project intends to bring Pennsylvania signage in line with best practices of snow belt states, and to address current problems of navigation and safety that plague both local and visiting riders.
Specifically, Pennsylvania has many self-contained trail systems with little or no navigational markings other than street or road names. Included within these segments are trails that loop and those that cross the same road more than once. At these junctures, riders that are not intimately acquainted with the landscape have no means of identifying their location at a crossroads — offering potential for riders to become lost, and to do so when low on fuel, in periods of extreme weather conditions, and at nighttime.
This pilot Project, included snowmobile clubs in the three-county area (Erie, Potter, Somerset). These clubs identified the locations of intersections and numbers of signs needed, and did so by utilizing the same set of guidelines.
PSSA provided signs and posts and worked with clubs to place the first signs. It should be emphasized that consistency is key to the Project. By utilizing the same signs, the Project illustrates the potential for consistently navigating trails cutting across PA Bureau of Forestry land, private trails and connectors, ANF Federal land, joint use roads, and designated snowmobile trails. In this regard, the Project takes another important step toward the development of statewide mapping.
Currently clubs can order posts and signs through the mini-grant program. For more information on this Project, call or e-mail PSSA at (888) 411-PSSA.
