Bicycle Network: Good Design Guides

Rail trails and tourism trails have a range of signage needs. These include:

• Directing potential trail users to the start or other access points along the trail
• Notifying trail users of the Code of Conduct and rules of using the trail
• Alerting trail users to potential hazards or road crossing
• Providing trail users with distance and directional information
• Directing trail users to points of interest along the trail.

We have put together some examples from trails around Victoria on this webpage. Railtrails Australia has produced a manual (PDF 847KB) for signage on rail trails. The East Gippsland Rail Trail has also used signage that shows (PDF 5.74MB) the distance to attractions and landmarks along the rail trail.

Highway signage

VicRoads has signage standards for identifying attractions along rural roads and highways. The brown sign (right) is used in conjunction with green directional and distance signs.

These are useful for helping people to find the start of a rail trail or an access point with car park.

VicRoads also has standard yellow diamond shape signs to alert drivers to rail trail crossing points. See photo (below)

Road crossing signage

Useful for alerting trail users to road crossings and getting their bearings

Behavioural signage

Most rail trails have a code of conduct that outlines the rules of the trail. We have a sample of photos from trails (below)

Information signage

This is useful for letting trail users know how far it is to the next town and what facilities are available close to the trail.