Are all these at-grade connectors necessary?

[nanobug]

Hello!

I am thinking that all these at-grade connectors are not necessary. However, I would like to drink a little bit of collective wisdom before I embark on the pleasureable activity of deletion. What is you opinion?

Thanks!

[AlanOfTheBerg]

They do not look necessary to me. It looks ugly and doesn't add anything to the navigation. There do not appear to be physical barriers in place along either left or right turn lanes requiring moving over by a certain location. I say "begone!"

[osbumlets]

OMG. They're everywhere along that road! What in the world!

Not only unnecessary, they're the wrong street type and will give turn instructions way too early.

[shawndoc]

Maybe drop the AM who made all of those a PM after you delete them pointing him to this thread and the wiki to explain why.

[jasonh300]

The way this has been done, the turn instructions give an "exit right" on the right turns and you get it a mile and a half before the turn. It's very confusing. Ramps should never be used unless they're attached to a Freeway or Major Highway and no road type should ever be used for something like this. There are very few exceptions to that.

[CBenson]

Maybe drop the AM who made all of those a PM after you delete them pointing him to this thread and the wiki to explain why.

My personal opinion is that it worse form to delete work of others that is functioning than it is to make complicated intersections.

Thus I believe it is critical to PM. No matter how much you guys don't like these types of intersections, they can work (granted they are much more likely to break). There are quite a few editors in the DC region that are doing this. If you simply delete them without discussion, its just going to be a war of points with successive deletions and additions going back and forth.

[nanobug]

Thus I believe it is critical to PM.

PM has been sent...

[wpegues]

I presume we are talking about the ones I added in Reston, probably the ones on Weihle, but there are a few others.

I agree its messy. And I would like to find some other designation than ramps.

After they dispersed to the active tiles, I road tested them to attempt to recreate the various problem markers that kept showing up. They worked fine. Also, they do not come up too soon. Previously in driving this area (where I actually live so its driven several times a day) instructions for turning would arrive too late. Sure if we all live there its fine, but if you don't live there, you would get your instruction for turning one AFTER the solid white line for the left turn late or the right turn lane had occurred. Sure, its not a physical barrier, but crossing the solid white line can get you a ticket in Fairfax County - or at least stopped and warned. Right now, the way they are set up you get the alert to turn in advance of the turn lane, and you get the turn notification when the turn lane actually begins and then again at the actual corner.

What I am trying to understand is that though all of these are all created the same way sometimes Waze voice instructions state 'stay to the right' for the entry alerts to some turn lanes, and sometimes it says 'turn right'. This is for the early alert, its always the same for a specific intersection, but some intersections it says 'turn...' some 'stay to..." Very consistent on the part of Waze, but no idea what generates it to say turn vs stay. The 'stay' for instructions to enter the turn lane would be better.

Above, I mentioned that there were error alerts that I was responding to that made me set up this test. Several intersections on Reston Avenue, and on Weilhe started to show up with map error reports. The drivers path would always show a right or left turn off of or on to these roads from the intersecting roads that when the photo map overlay was displayed the drivers path was exactly the path the vehicle needs to follow on the road photo map. The Waze track would show the attempt to follow the roads 'as drawn', and the error (from Waze not the user) was that the roads were too far apart and suggested correcting the map.

So, what to do? Originally I thought, perhaps this was something to do with the new maps (from several months ago). They had all sprung up within a few days after the roll out. So I just went in verified that there were actually no irregularities, adjusted a few road tracks where they were off, and noted them as 'fixed' and waited.

Over the next few weeks, the errors returned to the same intersections as well as others. And when driving through some of them on my own, I noticed that sometimes (not always) Waze would get confused and recalculate. I never file a report on those, but I could see that this was what was generating a report that someone did make.

So, I went back and for those roads that were generating a problem, I created the turnout lanes.

After these propagated, no intersection with them has turned up an error report, and when I run through them with Waze navigating, it no longer does a recalculation. So then about a month ago I set up a test on Weihle and Reston Parkway of a series of these intersections so that they were all consistent.

Do I like the visual result? No, I don't, but regardless of the comments to the contrary, they have totally stopped map error reports that were being continually generated and they do operate to get you turning into these turn lanes at the right time and not crossing the solid white line (if you are not familiar with the area).

I am open to other suggestions and have not migrated this solution out of the limited test area and can easily change them to something else. But to simply remove them, unless Waze has moved to a better navigation of these kinds of intersections, will simply return to error reports being generated again.

Thoughts?

[AndyPoms]

1) Someone needs to deal with this unlabeled (red) segment (CORRECT PERMALINK)

2) Waze gives at least 3 alerts to the turn, typically starting at 1 mile or at the last turn you made if it's less than 1 mile away.

If that's not enough warning for people to get in the Right or Left lane & be looking for a turn lane before they get to the intersection, they should quite simply NOT BE DRIVING.

Rule 1 of editing: KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid (not calling anyone stupid)

Lose the ramps, mark the URs complaining about it as Not Identified and move on...

Also I feel we've had this conversation before...

[wpegues]

Like I said, the alert to turn, for the original lanes, is not given in time. This is especially true when the point from your last turn is less than a mile to your next turn, and you only get 2 alerts. Sometimes, even when its slightly over a mile from your last turning point to your next you will only get 2 alerts.

Like I said, remove the turn lanes, and you start to get error reports due to the actual vehicle path not being close enough to the map as drawn - no error reports at all with the turnout lanes.