On my drive from Utah to Southern Idaho this evening, I came across an interesting anomaly that really caused Waze, and me for a while, to lose its mind. The section here
Is a widely divided highway, probably 60-100 feet median, that has one side under construction and all trafic diverted to the other side.
When I crossed over to the other side, waze somehow thought I had turned around, even though I was still proceeding NW, it kept telling me to take the next exit to the South, behind me, and turn back. What, if anything, can and/or should be done to mitigate the incorrect driving directions?
The other question that was raised by my drive is about construction zone speed limits. Should we set the SLs to what they are without the construction or should we set them to the construction limit? I came across zones where the regular limit was 80 mph but the construction limit was in some cases as low as 55 mph.
Thanks for reporting this, Richard. I’ll do some checking on the best way to resolve it.
I don’t know Utah’s policy on speed limits for construction zones. Some (most?) states choose not to change speed limits for construction. However, I generally do prefer to set construction speed limits if the construction is long-term (3 months or more). The problem that comes up with that is sometimes the boundaries for the speed zone change, so if we don’t have somebody checking them periodically, they could still be wrong. I almost never use that section of I-84, so I wouldn’t be able to monitor it. Do you use it frequently?
Ultimately it’s the driver’s responsibility to know what the speed limits are; Waze can help out if somebody misses a sign or picks up the road at a point where there are no signs… but in a construction area, there are usually frequent signs, so it can go either way. I’d say that if you, or somebody else, is able to periodically monitor that we have the speed zones set correctly, we could use the construction speed limit if it will be long-term. Otherwise, leaving it at 80mph should be okay.
It varies, there are times when I’ll drive it a couple times a month and there are times when it will be six months between trips. I grew up in Twin Falls and still have a brother living in Murtaugh.
From what I saw, it looks like the section under construction will probably move every couple months.
I’ll I’ve made a first pass on the L2 parts of US-30 from Burley to Murtaugh, and will confirm it on my trip home tomorrow, but it looks like most of the stretch from Murtaugh to Twin Falls is locked at L3. I’ll mark it today with WSLM and update it tonight if you can unlock it to L2. I can PM you with specific unlock requests because I never know which routes I’ll be covering with my brother.
Sounds good. None of the MH is supposed to be 2, so I’ve relocked some of that section, but I’ll gladly lower it for you to apply the SL. Just let me know the PLs or start/end of the route and I’ll lower it for you.
Since you had such a large route and large number of URs, I went ahead and handled your SL URs for you. This way we can hopefully catch the next tile update and get that out there ASAP.
Thanks so much for doing all those. Idaho really needs some help with speed limits on those rural routes and that was very beneficial.
I got some clarification about how to handle the two-way construction on I-84 and I’m implementing that now. Basically we’ll be making the section of freeway that’s two-way shown as two-way, with the crossover where that takes place, and then doing a real-time closure (RTC) on the side that is unavailable.
I had intended to get to those earlier this afternoon, but my family had other plans. I hope I didn’t over do the SL URs.
There is one that was off by about a mile from the real location because of lack of cell service. I’ll find it and let you know where it is.
I will be doing a few more on my trip home. I will re-tag and verify US-30 between Murtaugh and Burley, and depending on time may take a little more of the old highway. I will also mark the exact locations of the crossovers on I-84.
Even though I live in Utah now, Idaho will always be my home.
