G. Manc - Bolton: Lwr Bridgeman St/Manc Rd (collab. pls)

Map Editors Community United Kingdom UK Editor Requests
1

Hi all,

I drive around Bolton quite frequently, and use the junction of Lower Bridgeman St & Manchester Road quite a bit. I’ve been thinking for a while this junction isn’t very well represented on Waze, and unfortunately I feel that - at least in some circumstances - lane info has if anything made it less clear.
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I’m only a level 2 editor, so don’t have the rights to amend lane guidance and would need to collaborate on this one.

I’m also slightly unclear what options can actually be given as lane guidance - I get that a lane can be shown as any of these: ↰ ┆ ↑ ┆ ↱ |
…and I know you can also produce a 45-degree arrow for sliproad exits - but is it possible to end up with a 45-degree arrow for lane guidance at a non-motorway-style junction like this one? If so I think they would be very useful.

The principal problem I’m aware of is drivers getting in the wrong right-turn lane when heading West on Lower Bridgeman Street. The signage is poor and the lane paintwork is both faded and not incredibly clear.

My thoughts are:

  • Introduce new one-way segment representing left-turn from Manchester Road (N-bound) and right-then left-turn from Lower Bridgeman St (W-bound) to Trinity St (W-bound)
  • Amend A579 Lower Bridgeman St - amend lane guidance to: 1- TL (no change), 2 - ahead/slight right (change from TR) to Trinity St, 3 - ahead/slight right (change from TR) to Trinity St, 4- TR to Bradshawgate. This would mean de-naming the northbound segment of Manchester Rd between Lower Bridgeman St & Trinity St/Bridgeman St, to make the guidance match street names.
    Slight right would probably be better than ahead (if that is possible), seeing as how the paintwork treats lanes 2, 3 & 4 as right turn lanes - but I think “ahead” would be better than “turn right” for lanes 2 & 3.

Making this change would also mean more useful lane guidance for traffic on Manchester Rd heading North: 1 - TL onto Trinity St, 2 - ahead onto Bradshawgate or TR onto Bridgeman St. Would this though make it impossible to then depict the newly-spawned right-turn lane for Bridgeman St traffic?

I had previously wondered about making Bradshawgate & Manchester Rd single 2-way segments rather than parallel one-ways through the junction, but I’ve since worked out that doing this would probably make it impossible to get the directions doing as I suggest!

Thanks,
David

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Hi Dave, these segments were mapped as split one way segments due to a recent project Waze HQ had the UK champs doing improve GPS accuracy.

We’re still trying to make junctions like this as simple as possible so adding more segments would complicate the matter, especially for Lane Guidance. I think unfortunately this is a case of the two junctions being too close to each other to be suitable for the current iteration of Lane Guidance. Until we get the ability to compound the Lane Guidance with junction boxes (or what ever they give us), I think best and safest solution is to remove the Lane Guidance completely from these two junctions for now. When Waze finally manage to give us the ability to determine which lane is best for the next junction along, then this can reimplemented.