17Cones, cabinets, stencils and temporary signs

The short version: Orange means a temporary work zone, and the cones, drums and barricades in it are built to national sizes and stripe patterns so drivers read them the same way everywhere in the US. Cardboard No Parking signs and street sweeping signs are the curb's temporary and recurring rules, and in Boston both end in tickets and tows. Green and gray boxes on the sidewalk are usually electric, telecom or traffic equipment, and you can often tell which by size, vents and stickers - but treat every one as live. Numbers on poles and boxes are asset IDs, bronze disks are survey marks, and blue-and-white signs with a circle or a wave mark evacuation routes.

What do orange cones, drums and barricades mean?

What you see: Orange cones, orange-and-white striped barrels, striped barricades on legs and boards closing a lane.

These are channelizing devices, temporary traffic control regulated in the US by Part 6 of the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). The specifications below come from Seattle DOT's Traffic Control Manual, a plain-language digest of the MUTCD that does not name its edition; the 11th edition (2023) was not checked for this guide.³³¹

Barricade stripes alternate orange and white and slope down at 45 degrees toward the side traffic should pass.³³¹ That makes the stripes a set of arrows: follow the direction the stripes slope downward, and you are going the way the crew intended.

A cone on a sidewalk around an open cover or a fresh patch belongs to whoever is working there. Moving devices around a work zone changes what drivers and pedestrians see, so leave them where they are, even after the crew has gone for the day.

What is the flashing arrow sign on a trailer?

What you see: A trailer- or truck-mounted panel of lights flashing an arrow or a moving chevron, parked ahead of a closed lane.

That is an arrow board. Under the Seattle manual, arrow boards are required where speeds are 40 mph (64 km/h) or more, and they supplement signs and channelizing devices rather than replacing them.³³¹ An arrow pointing right is telling you to merge right.

What do the STOP and SLOW paddles mean?

What you see: A worker in a high-visibility vest holding a sign on a pole that reads STOP on one side and SLOW on the other.

That worker is a flagger. The STOP face is red with white letters and the SLOW face is orange with black letters, and the paddle is at least 18 in (46 cm) wide. Flaggers wear ANSI/ISEA 107 Class 2 high-visibility garments by day and Class 3 at night.³³¹ SLOW means proceed with caution through the zone, not stop.

Why are work zone signs orange?

What you see: Diamond-shaped orange signs with black lettering: ROAD WORK AHEAD, LANE CLOSED, FLAGGER AHEAD.

In the US, orange is the work zone color. These signs belong to the same MUTCD Part 6 family as the devices above, and their job is to warn drivers well before the cones begin.

The rule is written into the manual. The 2009 MUTCD, Section 6F.16, says: "TTC warning signs shall be diamond-shaped with a black legend and border on an orange background," with the W10-1 railroad crossing advance warning sign as the exception, which stays black on yellow.³³² The 11th edition, issued in 2023, carries the same sentence in Section 6H.01.³³³

Who put up the cardboard "No Parking" sign?

What you see: Cardboard or paper signs fixed to poles reading "No Parking" with dates and times, for a move, a film shoot or construction.

In Boston, these are official City of Boston signs posted under a street occupancy permit. A 2014 city page for college students said moving permits require "cardboard City of Boston No Parking signs" at $4.00 each, that in residential areas they must go up at least 48 hours before the occupancy, and that the permit had to be obtained in person at City Hall at least 3 business days ahead.³³⁴

As of 2026 the process is largely online. For a moving truck, residents can buy a permit online at least 15 days ahead or in person at the Office of the Parking Clerk at City Hall at least three days ahead; a one-day permit for two non-metered spaces costs $69 including two signs, and signs must be up at least 48 hours before the 7 a.m. start.³³⁵ Construction and other street occupancy permits go through Public Works' online portal at least seven business days ahead, with a $50 base fee plus space charges, and signs cost $4 each.³³⁶

The 48-hour lead time gives drivers who parked before the signs went up a chance to see them and move. Boston also sends temporary no-parking alerts for events, moving and construction through notify.boston.gov/street-alerts.³⁰⁵

A homemade sign with no city marking is not the same thing. If you are unsure, the city sign will name the permit or the department.

How do I read a street sweeping sign?

What you see: A parking sign listing days, hours and months, such as "Street Cleaning, 1st & 3rd Tuesday, 8AM-12PM, April-Nov, Tow Zone."

It is a posted sweeping schedule. Cars left during the window are ticketed and towed so the sweeper can reach the curb. In Boston:³⁰⁵

• Daytime sweeping runs April 1 to November 30 in most neighborhoods.
• In the North End, South End and Beacon Hill it runs until December 31 and restarts March 1.
• Night sweeping runs year-round on main and arterial roads.
• If a sign shows no months, the rule applies year-round.
• In a month with a fifth week, weekly streets are swept and every-other-week streets are not enforced.

BTD issues the tickets and private companies it hires do the towing, at $132 plus $35 a day in storage plus a fuel surcharge. The city offers sweeping reminders at notify.boston.gov.³⁰⁵ Street cleaning was Boston's second-largest 311 category in 2024, with 21,873 requests.³²⁴

How do I tell utility cabinets apart?

What you see: Green, gray or beige metal boxes on sidewalks and lawns: short posts, waist-high boxes on concrete pads, tall gray cabinets at intersections.

These can be electric pad-mounted transformers and switchgear, telecom pedestals for phone, cable and fiber, or traffic signal and streetlight control cabinets. Color is a poor guide. Shape and hardware are better.

One explainer puts it plainly: "Size and shape are the most reliable indicators."³³⁷ Manitoba Hydro's advice is the part to remember: treat damaged equipment as live and keep at least 10 ft (3 m) away.³³⁸ Do not open, climb or sit on one, and do not dig near one without having the buried lines located first. In the US, that means contacting 811 before digging,¹ or Dig Safe in New England;¹² the paint section explains the marks locators leave.

In Boston, PWD alone runs about 1,600 streetlight control boxes,³⁰² so a modest gray cabinet near a row of lights may belong to the city, not a utility. For the electric system behind the green boxes, see the sister guide's power section.

A traffic signal cabinet houses the signal controller along with vehicle detection, power and communications equipment. US cabinets, covered further in the signal gear section, generally follow either the NEMA TS1/TS2 standards or the Caltrans-style 33X design built around a 19-inch equipment rack.³³⁹

What do the numbers stenciled on poles and boxes mean?

What you see: Stenciled or embossed numbers, small metal tags or stickers on light poles, utility poles, cabinets and boxes.

Most are asset IDs: the owner's way of naming one particular pole, box or cabinet out of thousands. Electric utility equipment typically carries a serial or equipment number alongside its red DANGER sticker.³³⁸ Boston's fire alarm boxes each carry "a designated number that identifies its location," and that number is what dispatchers see when the box is pulled.⁶⁹

Some codes record work rather than equipment. In New York, the blue "poker chip" disks and yellow "E" marks on streets are Con Edison paving markers showing the year of the work, so "E7" means 2007.³⁴⁰

The practical use is reporting. If a pole is leaning or a cabinet door is hanging open, quoting the number on it lets the owner find that exact item. Formats vary by owner and city, and there is no single national standard to decode them.

Newton, next to Boston, documents one local format. Its utility pole data, which came from the electric company, uses a pole ID that matches the number on the pole: a pole number followed by one or two post numbers separated by slashes, such as 123/5 or 112/4/5. Concrete poles on major streets were later given IDs made from a street abbreviation and the nearest address, such as WALN/1172 for a pole near 1172 Walnut Street.³⁴¹ Massachusetts towns often ask for that number when you report a streetlight out; Acushnet's form makes it mandatory.³⁴²

What is the round metal disk that says "do not disturb"?

What you see: A round bronze disk set in a sidewalk, curb, bridge or wall, stamped with an agency name and a warning not to disturb it. In the UK, an arrow with a horizontal bar cut into a wall.

This is a survey mark, a fixed point whose position or elevation has been measured precisely. Strictly, a benchmark is a mark of elevation. US disks are "bronze discs about 3.5 inches in diameter" (about 9 cm), and about 740,000 US benchmarks are in the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) database, each with a six-character permanent identifier, or PID.³² With the PID, anyone can look up the mark's datasheet.

UK benchmarks are usually carved into walls or set on metal plates, often on pubs and churches.³² Hunting them was a hobby hosted by Geocaching.com until 2023.³²

Surveyors still rely on these marks, so photograph them, look them up, and leave them alone. The survey marks section covers them in detail.

What do evacuation and tsunami signs look like?

What you see: A white square sign with a blue circle reading "EVACUATION ROUTE," sometimes with an arrow; on Pacific coasts, the same style with a breaking-wave symbol, or hexagonal signs announcing a tsunami hazard zone.

In the US, the EM-1 Evacuation Route sign is a blue circle on a white square with a white "EVACUATION ROUTE" legend and an optional white arrow, and it is retroreflective (MUTCD 2009, Section 2N.03).³²⁶ The tsunami version, EM-1a, keeps the white square and blue circle, adds a tsunami symbol, and requires a blue auxiliary arrow sign below it.³²⁶ Shelter signs in the EM-7 series (EMERGENCY, HURRICANE, FALLOUT, CHEMICAL) are black on white.³²⁶

Washington's methodology calls blue and white "generally accepted" for tsunami signs, and notes Oregon's "blue line project," which paints evacuation lines on roads.³⁴³ A blue line on a coastal Oregon road is therefore more likely an evacuation line than a water utility mark.

In Boston: NPR reported in 2006 that "New signs posted on every major thoroughfare in downtown Boston point to evacuation routes."³²⁷ The threat there is hurricane storm surge. Massachusetts maps hurricane evacuation zones A and B, which flood first; Boston and Cambridge also use a Zone C. Zones do not equal hurricane categories, and the state's advice is "Know Your Zone."³²⁸

Japan has its own system. In March 2016 it published JIS Z 9098, a set of evacuation guidance signs organized by disaster type that includes tsunami evacuation area and tsunami evacuation building signs, drawing on symbols from ISO 20712-1, the international water safety sign standard; Japan then proposed the system to the ISO committee for graphical symbols, ISO/TC 145/SC 2.³⁴⁴

Chile's national reference guide for municipal tsunami evacuation systems (Ministry of Housing and Urbanism with Onemi and other agencies, October 2017) calls for painting existing utility poles red with symbols showing the evacuation direction, painting meeting points and the first block of the safe zone green, and using photoluminescent signs that show the direction, the nearest meeting point and the distance in blocks to the safe zone.³⁴⁵

In Boston

• Cardboard City of Boston No Parking signs come with a street occupancy permit and, per the 2014 rules, must be posted 48 hours ahead in residential areas.³³⁴
• Sweeping season is April through November in most neighborhoods, longer in the North End, South End and Beacon Hill, and year-round at night on arterials.³⁰⁵
• Gray cabinets near streetlights may be among PWD's 1,600 control boxes.³⁰²
• Downtown thoroughfares carry EM-1 evacuation signs for storm surge.³²⁷

Elsewhere in the world

The device sizes and colors in this section are US rules. Other countries set their own temporary traffic control standards, and the details differ. Survey marks are a clear case of local style: bronze disks in the US, cut arrow marks and wall plates in the UK.³² Tsunami sign colors converge on blue and white across many jurisdictions,³⁴³ though Washington uses an orange hexagon for entering a hazard zone. For how roads are built and dug up in the first place, see the sister guide's roads section.

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