Eakins Oval and its appendages -- how to name the segments

Map Editors Community United States Pennsylvania
1

The Eakins Oval is a hot mess. Those unfamiliar with the area are almost guaranteed to take the wrong exit if they don’t have pretty good instructions.

That said, it causes far fewer URs now than it used to.

For this reason, I think we need to be a little bit cautious about making major changes to it.
Not that it’s perfect.
Just that there’s a huge risk of making it worse.

Summary: There are 2 LGS on the Eakins Oval, at the intersection of the Ben Franklin Pkwy NB with Spring Garden Street, that appear to give address ranges for 2 segments of what the official Philadelphia street map calls sping garden street, but the LGS calls them East Eakins Oval.

This seems to make no sense, and so there is some dispute among those who drive there regularly about what would be least confusing for drivers looking at the street signs while listening to Waze.

Here’s the current issue:
One segment of what the official Philadelphia street maps label as “Spring Garden Street” actually has a green sign labeling it as East Eakins Oval, and giving address range arrows pointing in two directions.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17723&lat=39.96372&zoom=6&segments=70758311,62962119&mapUpdateRequest=5237567

Clearly, this segment a part of Spring Garden Street. The question is – what choice of waze navigational instructions will give drivers the best match to what they actually see in front of them?

In this case, a driver approaching that intersection from here

Will see 3 signs at the same intersection - #1 on the left and #2 and #3 on the right.




The East Eakins Oval signs, with adress range arrows pointing in the two different directions, seems to imply that “east eakins oval” is a cross street, and that these two segments are “East Eakins Oval”

According to the official Philadelphia Street Maps, these are both Spring Garden Street segments, and there is no such street or portion of street called" East Eakins Oval".

According to visitphilly.com, “the oval” is located at 2601 Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
http://www.visitphilly.com/events/philadelphia/the-oval-on-the-benjamin-franklin-parkway/#sm.0001qgi0u3p6mdgdsvb2q8lx8qc22

But.
Those.
Signs!

In general, we create road names so that waze will produce navigation instructions that match what the driver sees.
But we are not 100% consistent. If we were, then this segment of Spring Garden Street would be named to give instructions for “to I-76 W”.

2

When we talked about this in the GHO I was inclined to ignore the Eakins Oval part of the LGS. Maybe PennDOT had a brain fart and used the wrong color. Eakins Oval is a historical designation but no one has ever used it except as a landmark. It’s just part of the parkway (and intersecting streets). I think we can use as an ALT if we want but not as primary street name.

3

I had moved the UR conversation to this forum post, and included bits of the GHO conversation, to open it up for discussion but it looks like Voludu (per usual) did a better job of describing the situation in this thread.

My two thoughts, as written in the UR comments, is that 1) the verbal directions of “Keep Right to East Eakins Oval” are confusing since the Oval is to your left and you’re keeping straight/right away from the Oval and 2) No one is looking at those signs when stuck driving around that Oval.

4

This is a great discussion topic thanks V!

So the crux of this issue is that the rules we typically follow are in conflict:

  1. Go with the Little Green Sign: Sounds perfect, except the LGS are likely wrong here
  2. Follow the PASDA Map or official city street maps: Sounds good, except why do the LGS not match?
  3. Do what’s best for the end user when it comes to navigation: Sounds good, but in a confusing large complex traffic circle is referring to incorrect clearly posted signs better, or a street name that is in a small blue box on the bottom, or not clearly posted at all?

Interestingly, the next traffic circle down in Logan Square, Ben Franklin Pkwy is clearly marked w/ Logan Square underneath.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxfkKxKRed4MbXIwM3ozNDc4VG8

Also elsewhere in the City, those blue sections of the road signs are used to give directions where another street name is still the primary.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxfkKxKRed4Mc1NnRWVwT3BUWVE

My guess is that whoever made the signs was trying to make the oval less confusing, OR didn’t know what the actual street name there was. Though visibly posting street names that are correct wouldn’t be less confusing but would actually be more clear.

And round and round the Eakins Oval we go…

5

I’m inclined to map per the Phila Streets “official” map. Everyone knows that Eakins oval is the “oval”. Naming spur or appendage roads “Eakins Oval” isn’t logical. Agree the posted signage needs work. The appendage road “East Eakins Oval” is officially Spring Garden Street. There is nothing but open park land along this segment and a driver would have no business navigating here unless navigating to Spring Garden St. We are better off leaving this segment “No Name” and mapping as a connector.

1.) Eakins Oval should also have Alt names as appropriate. The north side of Eakins is Ben Franklin Pkwy with Spring Garden WB passing through a tunnel under the oval. Those segments should be Eakins Oval with Ben Franklin Pkwy as Alt name.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17804&lat=39.96446&zoom=7&lo%20...%20ueFilter=0&segments=41745216,82566737,503045941,86246314,75863750,41741290

2.) On the Western part of the oval (in front of Art Museum steps) - naming should be Eakins Oval - Primary, Ben Franklin Pkwy - Alt. name

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17850&lat=39.96354&zoom=7&lo%20...%20ueFilter=0&segments=66875945,41741290,70758311,70758310,41742260

To the south - Eakins Oval is Primary name with both Ben Franklin Pkwy and Spring Garden Streets as Alt.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17810&lat=39.96308&zoom=7&lo%20...%20ueFilter=0&segments=41745216,82566737

Here’s the part in Question - On the Eastern side of the oval - Ben Franklin Parkway splits away from the Oval. This is the only quadrant of the Oval that is NOT considered part of the Ben Franklin Pkwy. The Philly Streets department posted signs that say East Eakins Oval. With that Signage, The Primary Name is East Eakins Oval, with the Alt name Eakins Oval.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17810&lat=39.96308&zoom=7&lo%20...%20ueFilter=0&segments=41745216,82566737,503045941,86246314

Appendage Road - It is NOT part of the Oval, but has a street sign. Per the city GIS it is Spring Garden St. I would name this segment Spring Garden St - Primary, E Eakins Oval, Alt name.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-75.17736&lat=39.96410&zoom=7&lo%20...%20ueFilter=0&segments=62962119

6

I had an omission in this part of my post /

[Here’s the part in Question - On the Eastern side of the oval - Ben Franklin Parkway splits away from the Oval. This is the only quadrant of the Oval that is NOT considered part of the Ben Franklin Pkwy. The Philly Streets department posted signs that say East Eakins Oval. With that Signage, The Primary Name is East Eakins Oval, with the Alt name Eakins Oval.]

Naming should be;

Primary - E Eakins Oval

Alt name: Eakins Oval
Alt name: Spring Garden St.

By adding the Alt names per this and my previous post - BDP should be satisfied along with BC for all shared segments.

7

If you think it’s bad mapping it, try riding a bicycle around it sometime…

Actually, please don’t. You seem like a nice person and I want you to live a long and happy life. :slight_smile:

For whatever it’s worth, I called the Philadelphia Streets Department to ask them the name of the segment in question. They confirmed that the official name is Spring Garden St. This is certainly not in and of itself conclusive information on what we should name it, but it is instructive as to what the city was trying to accomplish here.

As to the signs intersection in question, the signs #1 and #3 are angled to face traffic sitting at the lights on WB Ben Franklin Pkwy and the oval respectively. As such, the mounting angles of the signs don’t match up cleanly with either street, and it’s much more doubtful in person (in 3-D) whether those signs are intended to refer to the “appendage” segment at all.

The key here, as What I keep coming back to in looking at these signs, is that while the “East Eakins Oval” and “Ben Franklin Pkwy” signs are somewhat ambiguous in what they refer, The Spring Garden Street blue bars and arrows are about the only thing at that intersection that clearly and unambiguously point exactly one place, and define exactly one thing. If we tell someone coming from Ben Franklin Parkway to keep/turn right onto Spring Garden St, or someone coming from the oval to keep right onto Spring Garden St, then based on the signs at the intersection there is really only one possible thing we could be asking them to do, and that is to take the segment in question. Whether or not someone might think there was a better name for that segment, the meaning of the instruction would be perfectly clear, while any alternative involving E Eakins Oval would be less clear.

I don’t think that will work. Leaving this segment “No name” will present a problem for any route involving a turn onto Pennsylvania avenue, such as this route in which the user would be instructed to “Turn right to Pennsylvania Avenue, then turn left to Pennsylvania Avenue.”

I think naming this Spring Garden St hits items #2 and #3 above (and maybe the LBS instead of the LGS)? As Meat Loaf so eloquently put it, two out of three ain’t bad.

As an aside, this right turn From the BFP inner drive toward Spring Garden should not be allowed. Both the inner and outer droves of westbound Ben Franklin Parkway get the green light into the oval at the same time, and there is no opportunity to make a legal lane change prior to the intersection. Making a right onto Spring Garden from the inner lanes requires turning across two lanes of traffic from the outer lanes within the intersection, and is therefore illegal. EDIT: I’ll drop a UR for this, since it’s outside the scope of this discussion and I don’t want it to get lost.

Voludu2, thanks for getting the discussion started and for summarizing the issue so well, complete with the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one to be used as evidence against us. :slight_smile:

Kraz31, thanks for bringing the issue up in the first place. :slight_smile:

8

@ Clubjuggle - I think you missed the point of my message. The five recommendations with PL’s that I posted should resolve the issue.

My point with the no-name segment is that that AGC set up would work better than what is there currently. It would navigate no differently than any other AGC, which would be an improvement. Currently, The driver on Eakins Oval receives a TTS - turn right to E Eakins oval. A person from out of town could be left to wonder - am I departing the oval, or am I staying to the right within the east oval ? Only the actual oval should be called Eakens oval to prevent confusion. City GIS should prevail over LGS that are somewhat ambiguous.

I’m assuming the issue is with the East Eakins segment? I’ve navigated through here many times without any issues going to / from Kelly Drive or to the Schykill expressway from the Ben Franklin Parkway and Eakin oval. It’s one of Waze’s favorite shortcuts when the Expressway is clogged departing center city.

9

The East Eakins Oval segment should not be unnamed. It’ll cause weird inheritance issues that Clubjuggle already explained regarding Penn Ave. It needs to be East Eakins Oval or Spring Garden St. There are no other options in my book.

We go to extreme ends to map to the posted signage and match it exactly. (See 309 in the area of 663 and Quakertown or 222 between Reading and Allentown where signs bounce back and forth between 222 or common names for examples). This is no different and should match the LGS. There are 3 LGS that all display East Eakins Oval at that segment (The 2 that voludu already shared and a 3rd one I found right where the NB BFP Inner and Outer converge…See PL).

Philly’s street names are displayed in the large green bar on their 6 sided LGS. Some have extra information in an extra bar on the bottom (directional assistance, neighborhood, memorial names, etc), but the street name is consistently in the green bar. The segment names should match what’s actually on the sign.

10

Agree / do our best to match posted signage in PA. The NJ Turnpike is listed as I-95/NJ Turnpike south of Exit 7A even though there are ZERO I-95 signs and there are I-95 segments in PA as well. WME has (2) I-95’s running parallel - one in NJ / one in PA. But that’s another topic.

So your in favor of the Appendage road being Named E Eakins Oval, while I proposed Spring Garden St to match the GIS map. I’m ok matching the signage. The key is the Alt naming. Spring Garden Street is continuous from West Phily all the way to the Delaware River. We need to account for the shared segments where Spring Garden continues along a portion of Eakins Oval. Those segments should have Spring Garden St as one of the Alt names. The OTHER Alt name is Ben Franklin Parkway on the jointly shared segments.

East Eakins Oval is not shared jointly by BF Pkwy, but IS shared by Spring Garden St. The proposed E Eakins Oval segments should carry Spring Garden St as the Alt name.

11

Yes, I think it should be East Eakins Oval. I actually think this is one case where we don’t want to abbreviate East though to help avoid more confusion. East Eakins is a little more conspicuous than E Eakins.

I don’t think the extra alt names will make a difference either way but I’m not against adding them. If there was a break in continuity currently because of the missing alt names, I think we’d see more weird routed through here.

12

I think we all agree we need to match the sign, and the question is which sign to match.

The crux of the problem here is that the City of Philadelphia used non-standard signs positioned at non-standard angles to mark a non-standard intersection in a non-standard way. If I could climb a pole and replace the signs I would gladly do it, but absent that, we have to do the best we can with the research, local knowledge, policies and judgment that we have.

The key point to me is that “follow the LGS” is not a goal in and of itself, but rather a means to an end, where the desired end is to provide clear and unambiguous instructions to the user. There are, as there should be, plenty of cases where we use our judgment and add, selectively choose from, or entirely replace what we see on the signs, or even choose to use a sign other than the LGS, when doing so will provide additional clarity to, or improve usability for, the end user.

I believe that the suggestions to name this appendage road “East Eakins Oval,” while clearly well-intentioned, approach the problem from the wrong direction. I believe the best question we ask ourselves here is, “what is the clearest possible instruction we can give to route someone to the appendage road?”

If we ask the above question, then I don’t think we can really ignore the fact that the “East Eakins Oval” instruction points to two different s-out options (even when starting from an s-in already on the oval). The “Spring Garden St” option, however, only points one place. In short, a Wazer who receives an instruction directing them to East Eakins Oval would be left with ambiguity as to what was intended, where a user directed to Spring Garden St would almost certainly know without a doubt what was meant.

When you throw local knowledge into the mix, the case gets even stronger. Wazers familiar with the area will know the appendage segment as Spring Garden St, and the circle in front of the Art Museum as Eakins Oval. A user in traffic on the Ben Franklin Parkway directed to keep or turn right onto Eakins Oval might understand that to mean to bear right into the circle rather than to turn right toward Spring Garden Street, forcing a recalculation and a trip around the circle. At best they would be confused and have to look at their screen to resolve the confusion.

As I see it, the points in favor of Spring Garden St are:

  • Signs at the intersection for Spring Garden St only point one possible direction.
  • Official name for the appendage segment is Spring Garden St as per the Philadelphia Streets Department and GIS maps.
  • Use of Spring Garden St on the appendage segment, and East Eakins Oval on the oval means only one “East Eakins Oval” s-out and one “Spring Garden St” s-out option from each possible s-in, where using East Eakins Oval on both means two s-out with the same name from each s-in.
  • Use of Spring Garden St is consistent with how locals refer to the street. Use of East Eakins Oval for the segment that diverges from the oval will confuse locals and regular commuters.

The points that I see in favor of East Eakins Oval are:

  • Green signs align more closely with the appendage segment than with the oval (though this leaves the question open as to which sign aligns with the oval).
  • Blue signs are non-standard for street names in Philadelphia.

On balance, I believe the arguments for “Spring Garden St” are stronger, but obviously reasonable people differ on this, and that’s why we’re having the discussion. :slight_smile:

13

I like either using the street names and allowing BC to take over or leaving it blank. I’ve driven through there 1,000 times and never thought to myself, “Oh I’m driving on Eakins Oval for 100 feet, how exciting!” All drivers are going to be worried about is which street (BF Pkwy, Spring Garden, etc.) they need to exit the oval on. It’s going to generate so many instructions I’m fearful drivers are going to miss the correct exit point from the circle.