The Major/Minor Hwy confusion & Wiki

by **Karrows** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:36 pm

How do we fix the Major/Minor Hwy confusion & Wiki?

I'm relatively new. But as far as all of my searching has found, there has never been a clear consensus on the major vs minor highway convention in the US.

Let call this wiki entry #1
http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_label_and_name_roads

By this guide a Major Hwy is pretty much a freeway that wasn't quite finished so that it still has a few stoplights or cross streets. By this definition, I can only think of two short sections of roads in my state that fully meets the criteria.

Then let’s call this wiki entry #2
http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Map_Legend

By this guideline's statement on minor highways, any highway that is divided, has more than one lane each direction, or perhaps even has more traffic lights than intersections(?) is a Major Hwy.

So I figure let’s look around and see what the old timers standards are. But when I look around I see nothing consistent. I see entire cities using guide #1. They have practically zero Major Hwy's, and anything from 6-lane divided, to one lane with stop-signs is labeled as Minor Hwy. But then I see other cities going by #2. They have a full mix of majors & minors. So what's a new guy to do when even the regulars are still in debate and old timers start reversing my map edits?

Obviously the wiki pages need to be updated to be consistent with each other. But who's version of Major is right? What I think is right is somewhere in the middle, but closer to #2 than #1. I'd be happy to update the wiki's myself (if I could get my login to work correctly there). But some new guy coming in and trying to change the definitions is bound to irritate a lot of people. And I think it's rightfully so on an issue this large. New guys coming in and redefining major classification can cause quite the mess.

So what a new guy to do? Be bold and change the wiki, or just complain about it on the forums and hope someone else fixes it?

Now that I think about it, perhaps I could find an old timer to submit my wiki changes to. Then they could make the changes and take all the heat. Now if I can just find one who agrees with my version of what a Major Hwy should be, this might be a good plan.

by **HavanaDay** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:00 am

I know there are a few veterans out here who are probably beginning to disagree with me on this but I have been using the 1st guide as sort of a general rule. I haven't seen the second one at all. Guess I need to start looking at the wiki a little more often.

Freeways - Roads that just have ramp access. No cross streets or anything of the sorts. Whether they are State Highways, County Roads, or Interstates.
Major - In NC we have been labeling all US highways as major. Whether they need separated or not. This I think causes the most disagreement from us "veterans".
Minor - US Bus Routes and State Highways.
Primary - All other heavily traveled routes.

I know a few who will chime in here with differences. I am not even sure if you will get a consensus. But it seems to work for us in NC. I don't really have any solid arguments against what others will probably propose as well this is just what seems to work and like in NC.

Using this method I have only found one issue with routing. Going from Charlotte, NC to somewhere out in western NC past Asheville (ie Cherokee, NC) it will prefer routing down through I-85 to Charlotte instead of US-74. But my Garmin even does that.

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:00 am

I've generally followed the same method as HavanaDay in Oregon. There are a few notable examples and our Oregon To Do wiki page details these. Because there is zero effect between major and minor on routing, I see it as a really minor thing and use it to visually separate, quickly (with color, sorry color-blind folks) state routes from US routes from interstates. I see little reason, currently, for spending a lot of brain time on the merits of the various opinions any longer. We've spent so much time and never come to a satisfactory conclusion.

If, in the future, Waze makes some kind of change whereby Major highways are given some kind of preference to routing due to size/capacity/structure.

by **FrisbeeDog** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:05 am

The way I look at it, the less subjective judgements we ask area managers to make then the more consistent the map becomes. So I like and support the US=major and state/business/alternate/etc.=minor designation. It is easy to see which roads need to be freeways, but as you noted it is often difficult to determine major/minor.

Also, I believe the routing engine does not prefer freeways, major highways, or minor highways over each other (it does prefer that group over primary and regular streets). Since it then just uses average speed per segment to compute the fastest time, the major/minor issue doesn't make a difference in routing so I think we just use it to designate US vs. state.

Also, I agree with HavanaDay it has worked very well in NC.

by **scruffy151** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:33 am

I follow guide #2. I believe they should be defined based on the quality of the road and/or the amount of traffic they handle. I have some pretty crappy US highways around me, 25 mph speed limit with stop signs. So I have trouble marking that a major highway.

by **invented** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:03 am

The first example has a lot of US-centric convention so it's not helpful to me. The second one is more reasonable. Here are my rules:

Freeways (usually 400-series King's Highways) = Freeways
(Current, non-downloaded) King's Highways 2-399 incl. 7000-series = Major Highways
Regional Roads, County Roads, incl. downloaded King's Highways, Secondary/Tertiary Highways = Minor Highways
Important street as designated by consensus of Niagara Navigator map, Google = Primary Street
Designated service roads, U-turn ramps, pull-offs on parkways, nondescript laneways not leading through parking lots = Service Roads
Mostly everything else not a parking lot or unimproved gravel road = Street

by **PhantomBlack** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:12 pm

Still being rather new this I am in your shoes and still find this subject confusing. I have been reading others opinions here on the forum, and like HavanaDay's guide. Even then I think there are cases when a US Hwy should be demoted to minor or State Hwy demoted to primary.

dmcconachie · by **dmcconachie** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 1:15 pm

Moved to the US forum.

by **Karrows** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:18 pm

No comments of fixing the wiki though?

I'm gonna work on it and try to make it as clear and consistent as possible, yet not-absolute to allow for regional tweaks.

by **R4CLucky14** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:20 am

(Keep in mind, I'm talking about rural areas more so than urban areas)

In East Tennessee, we have some highways (US and SR's) that are of near-Interstate quality with at-grade crossings, with barely any stoplights, if any. These are typically 2 lanes in each direction with a wide right shoulder and either a middle-turning lane or a grass median, with left-turn deceleration ramps.

I've been marking these routes, whether US or a Tennessee Route, as a Major highway. I've also, for aesthetics, have been trying to not downgrade these roads in construction zones or in areas where TDOT has not upgraded the road to this quality.

US-11 makes me scratch my head, personally, for example. It's considered major in all the TDOT long-range maps, and considered more major on the Official Transportation Map for 2012, but most of it is worse than some State Routes crossing it - but then again, it's parallel to an Interstate - so why upgrade it to a near Interstate-quality road?

Here is what US-11 looks like (for most of it outside of Cleveland and Athens, TN):

But, here is another US Hwy, 411 (parallel route quite a ways from I-75 and US-11):

(This is typical construction, from what I've seen, for the more major US and some Primary State Routes)

Similarly, this is SR-30, a east-west route:

This is the typical construction for most Primary State Routes (In this case, Highway 72 is one of a decent number of east-west Primary State Routes):

Last, but not least, Tennessee has many Secondary State Routes. This is Highway 322 - a literal east-west route:

After granting all this information, here is what I'm pressed to do (I've primarily have followed US=Major, SR=Minor, but I think that doesn't work all the time):

Mark roads like US-411 and SR-30 as "Major Highway" (even for stretches not completely up to par, but are under construction or will be in the near future), for aesthetic and functional reasons.

Mark roads like US-11, SR-72, and SR-322 as "Minor Highway": Basically, the quality of SR-72 is better than US-11 and SR-322 as a whole, and I'd like to mark it as such, but SR-322 and US-11 are still major routes - and are also on Transportation Maps. Marking it as a Primary Street would also conflict with local roads that are exactly that - local.