Please unlock the following to so that I may make this a primary road (or do it yourself); it is one of the main roads through town, yet has been marked just as any street (this is the last piece that needs to be finished). I am an area manager here. Thanks;
Fixed
Actually most of those roads don’t qualify as primary streets, there is nothing in their design that leads to extra traffic flow, or that delineates them from neighboring streets. Such features would be additional traffic lanes, traffic lights etc, non-residential (no driveways feeding onto the roads). They were not marked as primary streets before for that reason.
Remember, simplicity is the key, not matching what google maps has. There is no bonus in routing between the street types, but having one street marked as a primary when it is no different in capacity or design than a neighboring street can cause Wazers to ignore Waze’s directions which can cost them time.
By letting Waze take drivers over additional identical streets it is able to spread the traffic over the roads easing the drive times for all. If the drivers only trust Waze, but too many won’t want to leave a “Primary route” because the mere designation makes them believe it is better and faster.
Further in your making primary roads I’ve see a couple places where you didn’t just change the road type but actually broke intersections such as the junction of University Pkwy and Freedom Blvd that had been working great. You left freedom as crossing University but without any actual junction, causing multiple map problems to pop up. I fixed it rather than save the permalink to show you as traffic flow is more critical.
In response to the Freedom Blvd. and University Parkway, I’m not sure how it would have stopped working, but I’ll defer to you on that one.
And thanks for clarifying what a “primary road” should be. I had sent you a message about what defined primary roads about a week ago, but never got a response. However, the roads I’ve changed have not been “identical” to those around them, but are in fact main roads through these areas. Other roads connecting to them have to stop, they are the path of least resistance, and do in fact in most cases have extra lanes, traffic lights, etc.
I understand the desire for increased simplicity, yet as a driver, wouldn’t you prefer to use a road that goes say, 1 mile and has only 2 possible stops versus one that has 10? I believe such a difference merits a distinction, but that’s my opinion. Similarly, I drive these streets quite often, having family that lives in the area, and also took into account the GPS layer, which also confirms that many Wazers also take said routes quite often, showing them to be high-traffic areas for Wazers too.
The other thing I was wondering about is to what extent do we take local conditions into account? In a larger city/town for instance, a primary road would certainly have more lanes. Yet for a small community, even a “highway” might have only one lane, yet it is still a main thoroughfare through the area. The same street in a larger community wouldn’t qualify as a “primary road,” yet in context it does.
So my question is, does the context then not matter? The roads I’ve marked as “primary” are ones that I know for a fact go faster and have less stops, have marked lines, etc. The only state highways I’ve tweaked are those that were not marked for whatever reason. I understand your point, yet I also believe that most of the modifications I’ve made are valid ones. Your thoughts are appreciated.
You must have sent the request about primary roads to someone else. I’ve gone through our recent PM’s and there was nothing in any of them about primary roads. I maintain that most smaller cities in Utah really don’t need many primary roads. Hwy’s get marked as such, the rest don’t really need them and even the big cities (SLC, Provo, Ogden) don’t get many primaries. maybe if Primary did something other than color I might change my tune, but routing wise they do nothing.
I did leave some primaries in place, just not as many as you had. At this time I realize my argument is weak, I usually have a good solid reason even if it takes me a bit to remember why I don’t like or want something. So for now you can put some back, please be a bit more selective. And be careful of intersections. What I found at Freedom and University was that Freedom had been disconnected, the junction between the two segments of freedom had been slid slightly north breaking the intersection. Maybe you weren’t the one who broke it, but you were identified as the last one to edit it.
If you haven’t started using it yet I strongly recommend the segment Highlighter script as it shows many fine tuning issues that still need to be done such as u-turn and reverse connectivity issues.
That message was (I believe) an email actually, so it wouldn’t show up in the PM…anyway, no hard feelings. I assumed I was free to proceed since I hadn’t heard otherwise from you.
As for the distinction, I agree that if they meant something besides just color, they would have more purpose. I’ll be leaving most of the ones you changed, I’m not too broken up about it. Perhaps like you said, one day they may change it so that routing-wise the primary roads take precedence over regular streets. If/when that happens, we can address it then.
I’d like to check out that Highlighter script, but could you perhaps send me a link/info as to how to use it? I’m not sure I know what you mean…I think I may be using it, but just so that we are on the same page 
Thanks again.