Browsing Kalamazoo, I’ve seen some inconsistency with street/private roads within apartment complexes. After reading through the Road Types Wiki Page and consulting with @Sketch (I didn’t know how to save chat history) we agreed that if this is in fact an apartment complex with privately managed roads (and not a neighborhood, or townhome complex with publicly managed roads), the use of “private road” is appropriate.
The Waze map seems to match Google Maps for the few points I checked, but personal knowledge of the area and the Road Types Wiki Page lead me to suggest changing to private roads.
I’ve seen a handful of cases where such a change could be made, but being more than minor (and being new), I thought I should bring it up on the forums first.
To be clear, I did agree with setting/leaving them private for now, but I’m not sure I agree with the Wiki guidance entirely, and I’m not sure editor practice does either. I can put more thought into this later, but as a preliminary matter: If an apartment complex is not gated, at the least it seems more appropriate to use the parking lot road type.
In the second PL, it seems that the southern area right near the office is mostly set to ‘private road’, while other areas are set to street. Perhaps this was due to unfamiliarity with the area?
EDIT: Ty for providing the clarification - I will go ahead and bring the rest of the complex in line with the office-area (there’s 4 types in use in here!), so that only the private vs street debate remains.
If they’re larger complexes, you may have trouble with all private roads as outlined in the “smaller” private installations section. The first example being all private may have some issues (or may not…I’m just taking it at face value based on what people have described). Even if they’re not gated, I would put a private road segment at each entrance and exit so that Waze doesn’t find a “shortcut” and have it become a tempting thoroughfare.
I was told in my first Area Manager review that private road is appropriate, so that’s what I’ve been using ever since. A parking lot road would provide a similar penalty but would be a misleading label and would be more likely for a newer editor change change IMO.
I suppose what seems intuitive to me depends on what the complex looks like. In the first link above, that looks more like a parking lot for an apartment complex, whereas in the second link, that looks like streets in an apartment complex. Really, it doesn’t make a functional difference, that’s true.
This one is fine all private. It is small and has few entrances.
A little more questionable and kind of a bad example. But being as there is a PS right next to it I don’t see it causing much issues. Unless those intersections get terribly busy. It could be a candidate for a “drive through” subdivision set up being as there are multiple entrances/exits on different roads and such circumstances when all marked private have sometimes shown to cause routing anomalies. It will favor one entrance over the true fastest or shortest. I don’t have the example, but HavanaDay and driving79 both have better examples of neighborhoods they have encountered this error with.
Here is an example of a “drive through” private neighborhood. It connects two roads faster than anything else in the area, and would therefore be favored by the algorithm. However it is too large to really want to mark all private.
I also agree that the wiki doesn’t do a good job of covering multiple circumstances.
However I prefer to use private roads over PLR. Makes more sense to newer editors and myself.
I haven’t personally seen an issue with the smaller 1-3 entrance neighborhoods but it also. The biggest thing to remember is if you aren’t going to mark all the roads as private is that that is where it seems the most routing issues come into play. And you may want to consider a “drive through” set up.
In my opinion though both examples should just be private.
However I am open to correction or opinions otherwise.
The reasoning behind making most apartment complexes private and such, isn’t always because they are “private”.
It is also used to prevent routing into/through a complex or neighborhood. We know Waze has clever ways of making U-Turns and detours at this point and how would you like a bunch of people driving through your complex to make U-Turns and such.
Is it a issue with everyone? No. But better to standardize in my opinion.
I was thinking along the same lines. That, and the surrounding roads are all mH (55mph), so going through here is never going to be faster. Shorter, maybe…? but traffic trying to cut through is likely to be speedier than desired by residents.
After further thought, I may opt to try the preferred treatment for larger installations. Most entrance/exit to the complex have one-way lanes.
This may have been the intention of marking one of the roads within the complex as a service road.
Fewer edits, and some improvements to routing near the main entrance, which needed help, imo.
