Is Worcester getting farther away? These Mass. Pike signs say so

CHICOPEE — How far away is Worcester? Don’t trust all the signs on the Massachusetts Turnpike to tell you.

A sign in Chicopee headed eastbound says Worcester is 37 miles away, with Boston at 82 miles.

But 4 miles later in Ludlow — closer both to Worcester and Boston — the next sign says that yes, Boston is closer, but, somehow, Worcester has gotten farther away.

Now it’s going to be 40 miles before you get there.

The two signs have coexisted on the Mass. Pike contradicting each other for years.

It’s the second one, with Worcester 40 miles away, that gives the true information. (A reporter’s odometer puts it just about 40 miles exactly from the parking garage at Worcester’s Union Station.)

So what happened?

Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) spokesperson Marshall Hook has a likely answer. Formerly, federal standards said signs should tell drivers how far away the nearest exit is to their destination, rather than the current standard of the distance to the destination itself.

That makes a difference for Worcester, which is about 7 miles up from the Mass. Pike, taking the Interstate 290 exit.

When federal standards through the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices were updated to reflect the change, one sign may have been updated while the other was not.

A dive into the Google Street View archives provides some further hints.

A photo from January 2016 has a different sign in the place of the “Worcester 40″ sign — which said Worcester was 33 miles away.

By September 2018, the sign was replaced with the one that stands there today, the Google Maps image archive shows.

That’s not what happened to the other sign.

In October 2018, it is barely standing with a big dent and only one leg, the Google Maps image at the time shows. By July 2019, the sign is laying flat on the ground.

In September 2022, archival Google images show the sign restored, but not updated. Its original distances to Worcester and Boston remain unchanged.

But if the damaged sign was overlooked, it hasn’t seemed to cause problems — or even be noticed.

MassDOT officials, contacted Wednesday, weren’t aware of the disagreement between the signs. Hook said they hadn’t received any complaints about the signs in the near-decade they’ve both been up.

But that time is coming to an end.

Hook said new numbers are being fabricated to place over the sign to correct it and bring it up to the new standard.

The cost? About $500 for materials and labor.

“It is anticipated to be installed next week,” Marshall said Friday.

MassDOT oversees traffic sign installation, maintenance, inspection and replacement throughout the state. They replace between 1,100 and 1,500 signs on the interstate and freeway system every year, according to their website.