I wanted to bring up the topic of roads that are Dirt in North Dakota. Technically NDDOT has four classifications of dirt roads.
To my knowledge we don’t have a Waze FC equivalent for these roads. I propose that we create a standard for these roads (ie. Streets/Dirt(4x4)) I took the time to look up the FC maps and find good examples for each one.
My take would be to leave/maintain gravel roads at street type and the lesser roads in that list would better fall into the dirt type classification. It’s been a while since I looked at FC documents, for ND but in other states gravel roads are also seen as minor collectors at times and could be set as Primary Street for their type.
An argument could be made for the graded and drained road to be street type as well.
Ideally we’d have a toggle to set a street type to “unpaved” which could represent gravel, but that’s a feature not yet implemented or available.
What’s your take?
I propose that we classify these categories as such:
Gravel Graded and Drained: Street
Graded and Drained: Dirt/4x4
Unimproved Road: Dirt/4x4
Primitive Road: No designation (ie. Delete)
My reasoning is that for most vehicles, the Gravel Graded and Drained roads will be navigable for most if not all vehicles even in adverse conditions (ie. Rain) because it is drained and graded. The dirt graded and drained can be trouble for non-4x4 cars when it rains as the raw dirt can develop ruts. The unimproved road is wide enough that it would be okay for a 4x4 vehicle even in wet conditions. Then obviously the primitive road is basically just tire ruts without any maintenance and in some cases runs through farm fields. Not suitable for vehicle traffic unless it is a farm road.
I want to say that it was discussed at some point that dirt road be saved for “impassable” roads for RV’s and other large class vehicles. This may be a good guideline to start with.
What wxmeddler proposed falls in line with that same thinking.
Ha, you’re quick on the draw. I had to make it into two separate posts for the picture requirement. You can see my thoughts above, but I agree with you, an “unpaved” type would be great but as we have to deal with what we are dealt with. I suggest keeping the “Gravel Graded and Drained” as streets and then downgrade to 4x4 from there, and finally the primitive road as N/A b/c in most cases it’s not even navigable. I agree with triage, if a RV/Truck can navigate the “Gravel Graded and Drained” which most can, then it should be street, everything else should be dirt or N/A.
100% agree
Standing by for validation from SM or RC before it goes to the wiki, but don’t see any issues with it
the1who and I had this discussion back in February and it aligns with what has been said so far. In summary, dirt roads/4x4 trails would require a vehicle equipped to handle such roads, like in the case of mountain trails or very rutted paths that an RV would not be able to complete.