Canada/Road signs

This page documents guidance for tagging road signs in Canada. Road signs in Canada are largely like those in the United States, but with wider use of pictographs to reduce language barriers between English and French speakers, and metric units are used. While there is a national standard for road signs, for the most part, road signs in Canada vary by province by territory. Signs are generally in English for most of the country, with French used generally in Quebec; bilingual English and French signage is generally found in New Brunswick, Ottawa, around national parks, and Francophone and Anglophone areas in predominantly Anglophone and Francophone regions respectively. Some road signs may also be in Indigenous languages, such as those in First Nations communities and reserves, Métis settlements, and Inuit communities both in and outside Nunavut.

Please take note that most tagging schemes may be suggestions than guidelines, and some mappers may use alternative tagging for certain signs - if so, consider adding it or discuss it in Talk-ca.

This page is under construction; feel free to add any suggested tags.

Sign codes

The values for traffic_sign=* can be set as a combination of an ISO 3166 code followed by the sign code. For Canada, the primary source for sign codes is the Manual of Traffic Control Devices for Canada (MUTCDC), developed by the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC or Association de Transport du Canada or ATC in French), and most provincial and territorial signage standards that derive from the MUTCDC.

Like with the United States MUTCD, the MUTCDC is not mandatory nationwide, and most provinces and territories usually add other signs for their regional standards. For the most part, provincial sign codes generally match those in the MUTCDC, with signs with codes specific to certain provinces or territories being the minority.

Signs

As a full list of all signs will swamp this page and affect loading of this page in some devices, lookup tables for signs are created for each province or territory, and sign type. Unless otherwise marked, these tables are generally in English; French equivalents of their meanings are provided after the English. Where the page is in French, English equivalents are provided after the French. By province or territory:

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Ontario (en)/* Ontario (fr)
• Québec (fr)

By sign category:

• Informational (en)/* Indication (fr)
• Regulatory (en)/* Prescription (fr)
• Warning (en)/* Danger (fr)