Level 5 Update California Hayward (Foothill to 580-W)

Map Editors Community United States US Unlock And Update Requests
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My Level: 2

Waze editor Permalink

Update request to move the 580-W / Oakland junction back to Foothill Blvd to be co-located with the 238/580-E junction off of Foothill.

On Foothill, there are three directions of travel | Castro Valley | 580-W Oakland | 238/580-E |

Street View Overhead Signs

As currently mapped, Waze doesn’t provide guidance to 580-W Oakland until well past the split. Instead, Waze indicates “turn right 238/580”

As can be seen from the following Street View location, these are separate and distinct lanes of travel that break from Foothill at a common point.

Street View break from Foothill

Also, the existing segment off Foothill will need to be renamed to reflect 580-E

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It looks like it’s going to need to be moved even farther back than that, actually. The abbreviated prompt for 238 / 580 seems like an attempt to prevent “over chattiness” and prompts running on to each other. I think we can do a lot better here. Gonna study it a little more, and bounce my ideas off of a Champ before making any changes.

Are you sure it said “Turn” and not “Exit” Right? I don’t see anything that would produce a Turn prompt there.

3

You’re right – I normally run with voice prompts muted, so I checked this morning and it says “exit,” not “turn.”

It’s all pretty chatty now. With voice turned on, it’s liable to direct a 238-bound driver onto 580E, because it says “exit right, then stay right,” then “stay right to Stockton,” and then only at the last second says “stay left.”

If the junction is moved back to Foothill / Apple Ave, we would be given one of three prompts:

  • “Exit right for 580W / Oakland”
  • “Exit right to I-238 / 580E / Stockton, then stay left” (for 238)
  • “Exit right to I-238 / 580E / Stockton, then stay right” (for 580E)

If the junction is moved back further, I think the opposite problem is going to happen: cars bound for I-238 are going to be prematurely told to “stay left” as they approach the first split (to 580W), since these are neighboring lanes until they simultaneously break from Foothill. This may cause drivers to break out of their lane and jump over to the left.

Anyhow, thank you for jumping in on this (my frustration with this junction is the sole reason I became an editor). If I can help out with any video or test drives for feedback, let me know.

4

Yes this also has the complexity of the right turn that needs to have the driver in the right lane before the solid white line.

I’ll take another look later tonight to see what we might want to do here.

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Landoak, since you are driving this every day, I am willing to set it up as you think you won’t be more confused and you can report the results the next day since we are about 24 hours behind updates.

However, I am more inclined to map the roads as the white lines are forcing drivers. Technically the guidance for the freeway ramp splits should be happening back on foothill since you are unable to cross the while lines legally.

So I propose I update that section as it should be mapped and then you can report the next day. What do you think?

6

Sounds good! Frankly, anything will be an improvement over the current mapping. And don’t worry about my simplistic approach – I’m learning more from you vets all the time, and I’m sure you have a keener understanding of the best way to map this.

I’ll check the various routes after it goes live and check back in.

Thanks!

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That is a pretty complex area. Let’s give my changes a try. Probably won’t be live until Friday morning.

I split the Foothill lanes to provide guidance on the keep left and right instructions, and to help the driver visualize (if looking at the map) which of the three lanes to be in as the driver passes through that area. Hopefully I have all the settings correct. It is late here and I am falling asleep as I type this.

If there’s any problem we can fix Friday night.

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Or not… :frowning: Tiles are still at the 6th…

I think we’re on the right track here, with the lane setup, but I think that possibly better instructions might be given if the legs of the fork here were simply named, “to left lanes” and “to right lanes” (or possibly add “Foothill Blvd” in there, too). This would probably make much more sense, particularly to those coming from either direction on Grove Way, and southbound on Foothill. I know that we don’t normally give lane guidance, but this is a Very Special situation. It would also reduce the extreme chattiness here, where some prompts might otherwise end up right on top of each other in certain situations.

Also, the unnamed Grove segment is going to make for Very confusing (IMHO) instructions to those making the U from southbound Foothill:
Early prompts:
“Turn left to Castro Valley Boulevard, Mattox Blvd, then Turn Left”
“Turn left to Interstate 580, Interstate 238, Interstate 880, then Turn Left”

Final prompts:
“Turn left, then Turn left to Castro Valley Boulevard, Mattox Blvd” and
“Turn left, then Turn left to Interstate 580, Interstate 238, Interstate 880”

Those signs, up Foothill a ways are not really visible to anyone except northbound traffic on Foothill. No one, except locals, is going to have a clue where Castro Valley Boulevard is, especially coming southbound.

I think that the initial guidance should be a little simpler, and give the driver the idea that they DO belong in the right lanes, especially when they are subsequently told to “Stay Left to Interstate 580 West”

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Tonestertm, you have my full permission to make any changes to my proposal if you think that approach is better.

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I was going to hold off adding this comment until after test driving the new changes, but I’m thinking along the those same lines:

Lane identification is provided in the form of surface painted markings approximately 600 feet before the Grove Way intersection. Waze has the most current imagery; Google Earth shows some old markings.

With the new changes to the Waze layout, I believe drivers passing the motorcycle showroom are still going to hear:
“In 1,000 feet, stay right to I-580 / I-238 / I-880, and then stay right” (or left)

So despite this change in Waze, there’s still going to be the question of whether the right lane or “center” lane is appropriate.

And this instruction won’t be clarified until after passing through the Grove intersection, and I can vouch that during the commute, drivers are jockeying and stacked up in their appropriate lanes well before this stoplight.

On the other hand, if we dial it back to just one roadway segment, and a single node at Apple Ave, when drivers are about 250’ from reaching the Grove intersection, they’ll get a single command:
“In 1000 feet, keep right to I-580 west” or “…to I-238 / I-580 E / Stockton” or “…turn right on Apple Ave.” We could even build in a “keep left” segment for vehicles continuing on Foothill.

It’s simplistic, but reduces the chattiness, and gives drivers on Foothill all the guidance they need well in advance of the lane selection.

But before making any changes, I’m all for waiting to see how this first change behaves in real life.

And again, for drivers heading to downtown Oakland and SF, depending on traffic conditions on 580, this 580 vs. 238 to 880 can swing one way or the other, so this is one of those critical junction points where you want to know about a break from the expected routing as early as possible.

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The new tiles were live this morning.

As I was passing the Safeway two intersections away, where traffic is already heavily queued in the right-hand lane, I received the instruction, “in 3/4 mile, stay right to 580, 238, and 880.” Note that the right-most lane does indeed lead to all three of these freeways (580 east in this case). I was actually being routed to the center option, 580 W Oakland. Approaching Grove, I received the “keep right, then keep left…” command.

This is a problem because these two lanes are so thick with traffic, and with other vehicles trying to last-minute merge in from the left-hand lanes – it’s best to know what lane to aim for as early as possible, and lane changes after Grove are difficult.

I doubled back and drove Grove from the South. the instruction was, “turn left, then keep right to 580, 238, and 880.” Similar issue here, because all three of these freeways are painted on the right-most lane, and are clearly visible on the overhead sign just a few hundred feet from the intersection. But lane selection is much easier, since the only competition for lane space is the other cars coming off Grove in a single file line.

I’m going to set some 880 destinations for tomorrow morning’s drive, to test, but I’m expecting the same since clarification isn’t received until after passing Grove.

Thanks for all the effort so far. Despite the current problems, it’s still better than it was. But I’d like to try co-locating the nodes for the three options (580W, 238/580E, Apple Ave) for as much advanced notice as possible, or un-naming the first branches after the Grove intersection to get rid of the generic “580/238/880” instruction.

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Yes, sorry, you’re right, and I need to be more careful with that. It’s either “keep” or “stay,” but not “turn.”

I appreciate the continued efforts, and at least now I can figure out what way it’s going to route me prior to the split.

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We could try a real hack on this one since there is major limitations for the driver communication.

I was thinking we could add “to the center lane” or “to the far right lane” in front of the freeway names. It would then sound like:

“Keep right to the center lane to 580, 238, and 880”

or

“Keep right to the far right lane to 580, 238, and 880” depending on which direction they are ultimately going.

We may need to take advantage of the feature of unnamed road segments taking on the name of the following segment. Then we can create little short segments after each gore point with the appropriate lane selector code mentioned above. I am not 100% certain it would work as we want, but it might be closer than the trash the driver gets now.

One problem with all these freeway names on the segments in front of the businesses on that road is guidance for the address is messed up for the Foothill name. I haven’t thought about what happens for a search for an address on Foothill right there. I think we can solve it by putting the address on the segment that continues through on the left side. Assuming we leave that as Foothill and don’t change it as well.

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Or build driveways to each address from the right-most lane?

I understand your reluctance to place a single node at Apple Ave due to locations of the solid white lines, but isn’t this the choice between the lesser of two evils?

The real navigation problem is that that right-most lane has all three freeways listed, so once a driver hears “keep right” and then “580/238/880,” that becomes the go-to lane.

The single node solution would prevent all that, keep Foothill intact as a single segment, and a driver as far as 2+ miles back would know exactly what lane to steer for (well in advance) with just a quick glance at the next turn direction on their screen. In my estimation, this would be the single best prevention of last minute lane changes.

(On the other hand, this is all very interesting because I never imagined three parallel segments and am now envisioning – in other scenarios – what downstream re-connections could do. Hmmm…)

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I am not quite following the single node solution with a single Foothill segment. How does that get you any guidance? Where do you branch off for the exits then?

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Foothill would have a node with 4 segments just prior to Apple Ave that would branch to Apple Ave, 580E/238, 580W, and Mattox/CV Blvd. That one node would generate all the keep/turn commands.

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Ah. I understand your proposal. However, I’m not sure what instruction you get with 4 segment-out connections. We only have keep left or keep right. However maybe we can still do it that way and have the name of the outgoing segment be the key instruction. Meaning if we told the driver “Keep right to I-580” and that was the far right and “Keep right to I-880” and that was the middle lane, most people would likely see the signs to identify which of the lanes they should be at.

It might be the best of a bad intersection as you said.

If you like, I can unlock all the segments down to your rank and you can test some options since you drive it each day. Then just let us know which way sounds the most logical from a driver perspective.

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I’m certainly open to that if you’re willing to unlock. But yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking, with a “keep left” segment for Mattox.

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OK. I have reset all the following segments to rank 2

https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-122.09164&lat=37.68425&layers=3045&zoom=6&segments=57503111,61198531,87968022,5580195,87967957,5629739,87967985,87967978,87967982,87967984,87967981,87967953,87967956,5580146,5599408,5602826

We will want to get them back up to the higher rank after not too long to prevent any malicious edits. The most important thing to remember on any of these Major Highway and Freeway ramps is the enabled turns. Otherwise we will have a lot of ticked off drivers who drive through here all the time and don’t even bother listening to the route guidance, but a misplaced turn restriction will turn their world upside down. :wink:

Please provide updates after your changes and subsequent driving to hear the results. Also after you make any updates so we can double check your proposed layout to possibly make minor alterations before it goes live if necessary.

Thanks for taking on this complicated area.

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Thanks! Changes complete, but could you please take a look at my work?

In particular, I added a ramp “to Castro Valley Blvd / Mattox Rd” to generate a “keep left” command, and I want to make sure my angles are correct.

Thanks so much for the unlock.