I'd rather see us stay within the general confines of what we already have for standard naming conventions and not make up new prefixes. I agree with the proposals to get Waze to implement either "Bus." (with the period) or "BUS" to be expanded to "business" regardless of where it appears in the name.

kentsmith9 wrote:

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:I agree with the proposals to get Waze to implement either "Bus." (with the period) or "BUS" to be expanded to "business" regardless of where it appears in the name.

Are you voting to not spell out Business at all? Because if we spell it out then we don't need the TTS change.

No, but I'm not going to go and start changing every existing segment to spell it out either. If I come across them, I will. Spelling it out is fine. For now.

sketch wrote:IMO "BUS" in all caps is sufficiently differentiated from "Bus" to be allowed as an abbreviation, if it should ever be interpreted by TTS as such. All-caps is only ever used in Waze for abbreviations, never for words; TTS abbreviations are case-sensitive.

Yea, but Waze can't see the difference between "Ct", "CT" & "CT-" for TTS, why would it see "Bus" and "BUS" as different?

Maple Ct = "Maple Court" (a name of a small street)
Hartford, CT = "Hartford, Connecticut" (the City of Hartford in the State of Connecticut)
CT-9 = "Route Nine" - I would even be happy with "Connecticut Nine" (a limited access highway)

Right now, they all say "Court" as in "Maple Court", "Hartford, Court", & "Court Nine"...

Which is why we are still using "State Rte 9" for the roads, and slowly transitioning to "SR-9" for ramps.

sketch wrote:Well, the directional has to go at the end of the road name; whether the road name is "Business US-1" or "US-1 Business", it all goes before the directional.

Do we know how "Business S" is pronounced? "Pkwy S" is currently pronounced "Parkway Ess."

kentsmith9 wrote:I think you have a good point on shield generation. I have not checked in a while, but I thought business loops could occur on more than just Interstates, but maybe that is not correct.

Besides interstates, business routes certainly occur with US numbered routes in addition to some state highways. Michigan has at least two "business" routes serving our "M-" state trunklines, and I drive on "US-12 Bus" all the time. It may be worth pursuing a shield only for the interstate business loops and spurs though. My reasoning is: can anyone find some examples where "Business US-XXX" route (or a similar designation) is the primary street name? With shield generation currently tied to the primary street name (and inconsistently at that), how often would we see a shield for US or state business routes that would not be superseded by a local name? I know of a few dedicated interstate business routes where the business route is the primary name and no other name is in use locally, but in my experience, I cannot think of anything at the US or state level. Exit ramp TTS is the most prominent place where you would hear "Business US-XXX" unless it is actually the primary street name somewhere.

kentsmith9 wrote:Since that seems less likely given the history of changing many of the past TTS entries, I guess the tradeoff of it saying "Bus" or spelling out "Business" for the on and off ramps is the primary question.

My vote is for spelling out "business". In my opinion, hearing "bus" sounds awful. It is a good visual abbreviation on a sign, but not a good thing to hear.

kentsmith9 wrote:I see from your other thread you have a proposal to standardize on BI-XXX being read as "Business loop xxx" or something like that. I don't recall ever seeing that nomenclature anywhere so for a client Wazer just reading the routing instructions, they may not understand that.

For the sake of consistency with the rest of the country, I think that "BI-XXX" pronounced as "business eye - XXX" would be universally understood. I think that this is a regional consideration that I brought up in the other thread, but in my area, we could use "Business I-94" (pronounced "business eye") interchangeably with "Business Loop 94"--mostly because interstate signs explicitly show "Loop" and "Spur", but also due to what appears on numerous local signs.

PhantomSoul wrote:The "BUS" signs for business loops/spurs are either legacy signs from an era preceding dedicated bus lanes or are used in states that, I guess, do not use dedicated bus lanes.

Want to send some highway funds my way? My state seems to be filled with legacy signage with no money to make replacement a priority.

kentsmith9 wrote:Personally I would vote to keep Business after the roadway name/number, but I am not stuck on that.

The "Bus" to "Business" change in the wiki made my day. I don't care where it ends up as long as it is pronounced correctly. From a shield perspective though, if a shield is generated (which it won't be ), it should only be dbraughlr's suggestion of the green business shield, not the one for the main interstate it serves. I'm not as familiar as sketch with the rules, but I had a shield for "Old US-23" at one point that was the same shield as "US-23" paralleling it, so if there is any chance that having "Business" precede the route will generate an incorrect shield, it should be avoided by having "Business" after the route designation.

sketch wrote:For Interstates, as opposed to for US and State routes, I feel "business" is more important than the route number. While US-460 and US-460 Business could ostensibly have similar configurations, I-94 and BL I-94 certainly do not (BL and BS routes are never freeways, right?)

A quick check on Wikipedia has as a few examples where a former section of interstate was re-designated as the business route, so the business alternate would match the road type of the main interstate it now serves.

Even the Lodge in Detroit used to be designated as Business Spur I-696 when it was decided that it did not meet actual interstate standards, but federal funding was still appreciated for the route *wink wink*.

sketch wrote:To summarize, my views are as follows:
We should use 'Business' now; if we can get 'BUS' pronounced 'Business', we should use that instead.
So, "US-90 Business W"; unless 'BUS' == 'Business', then "US-90 BUS W".

Unless there is a jam, I have a ramp on my daily commute where I can easily test different configurations. I'll test it with "US-12 BUS E" first.

irowiki wrote:

davielde wrote: A quick check on Wikipedia has as a few examples where a former section of interstate was re-designated as the business route, so the business alternate would match the road type of the main interstate it now serves.

Not in all cases. For example, I-70 Business routes in Colorado are almost all old US highway routes that cut through a town that I-70 bypassed. Most of them aren't freeway, but normal surface streets.

Thanks irowiki. I think that I wasn't clear enough on the point though. The exceptions that I was trying to point out are just in the one sentence: "(such as Interstate 40 Business in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Interstate 80 Business in Sacramento, California)." These are examples where the business routes *are* freeway, but the majority of interstate business routes are not.

sketch wrote:"BUS" has already been tested; it says "bus".

I retract my offer to test!...