U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
400 Seventh St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590

May 17, 2004
Refer to: HOTO-l

Mr. Donald R. Askew
Deputy Commissioner
Virginia Department of Transportation
1401 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219-2000

Dear Mr. Askew:

Thank you for your April 22 letter requesting permission to experiment with specific service signs that have more than 6 logo panels. You have asked to experiment with the following 2 scenarios:

1. In situations where the FOOD services sign is full and there is vacant space on another specific service sign (for example CAMPING only has 2 logos), the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) would like to use this vacant space on the camping sign for showing additional food service establishments.

2. Instead of having 4 different categories of specific service signs (for example GAS, FOOD, LODGING, and CAMPING) along an approach to an intersection or interchange, the VDOT would like to substitute another FOOD service category instead of the CAMPING service category since there are locations where the CAMPING service sign would be empty.

3. In both of the above cases, more than the limit of only 6 FOOD service logo panels would be displayed on an interchange or intersection approach.

We have reviewed your experimentation plan and your request is approved. Were looking forward to receiving the progress report and final results of this study. We have assigned the following official ruling number to your approved request: "2-552(E}-More Than Six Logo Panels for Specific Service Category (FOOD)." For recording and tracking purposes it would help us if you would refer to this official ruling number in any future correspondence.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Ms. Linda L. Brown of my staff. Ms. Brown's email address is Linda.L.Brown@fhwa.dot.gov. Her telephone number is 202-366-2192.

Sincerely yours,
Regina S. McElroy
Director, Office of Transportation