My feeling is that the “Dirt road / 4X4 Trail” road type most closely fits the ruts you find crossing pastures, “Jeep trails”, and some Forest Service roads, better than the generally well kept, gravel, county roads that are often classified as collectors in Montana.
It seems to me that the Wazers most likely to be out on Montana’s gravel ways will be equipped to handle them. Indeed, I’ve been out in the past few weeks on many improved and not-so-improved “collectors” in a vehicle some might consider poorly adapted to such terian (Nissan Maxima), and suffered nothing worse than some “washboards”, a few potholes, and a layer of dust on my rear bumper. Any visitor who might turn up their nose at a road made without adhesives will likely stick to the urban areas where they are rare anyway, and if they need to drive out back of Bourke, they’ll find it difficult without crossing at least a bit of gravel. (What DOES a DR-restricted client do with an address in the middle of a network of dirt roads anyway? Is it just an expensive route, like routing against turn restrictions?)
The guidelines I’ve developed for myself consider the classification, whether the road is named, the condition of the road (from satellite or experience), and the presence of houses along it.
Official Classification:
It seems that only very rare collectors or arteries are in such poor condition that they may only be traversed by a vehicle with high clearance and 4-wheel drive. (I don’t think I’ve seen any.) Therefore, I feel safe classifying any road shown on the FC map as collector or above as a Primary Street or higher no matter how remote it is.
Named Roads:
Generally, any road that has a name on the FC map is more likely to be tolerably well maintained, and can usually (but not always) be classified as a Street. For example, this portion of Sappington Rd probably only gets occasional traffic from railroad service vehicles, so it’s Dirt. Unnamed roads are more likely to be classified as Dirt, but are still subject to the housing consideration below.
The condition of the road is usually easy to tell from the satellite images, but not always. Heading south onto this segment, I quickly realized my car wasn’t up to the challenge :shock: and backed up to get back on Rock Mountain Rd. It’s a bit tricky to tell from the satellite, but Reynolds Creek Rd is a fairly uniform, dirt color. There is no gravel that has been spread to the sides to make ruts, as can happen on better roads towards autumn. I would say this is the absolute best conditions that I would still classify as Dirt. On other roads, the presence of vegetation between the ruts makes it pretty clear that you’re looking at a “Jeep trail” and not a street.
The presence of houses along a road bias me to classify it as a Street, even if it doesn’t look to be in the best condition. This way Wazers can still navigate to an address if they have disabled dirt roads in the client. If there is only a single house (or maybe a couple) and/or the road is especially poor, I’ll set it as dirt.
Thoughts? Comments?