In the section of the forum about Including road names when not given on exit, Ituajr mentioned about following the principle of least surprise. The Australian Road Names wiki contradicts this when it comes to naming Highway segments. As it stands, if a highway passes through a city it is to have the highway name as a primary and the local name as an alt.
These instructions can end up with roads that do not match the street signs, so the directions may not match what would be expected. For example, the Warrego Highway passes through Toowoomba. While the road has been named according to the wiki, it doesn’t match what would be expected as the driver. For example, the darkened section is signed as James Street
The practice of using the highway name over a local name may have been an effort to maintain continuity. However, having the route number as an alt should aid continuity.
Instead of having the local name as an alt, it should probably be the primary name with the highway name set as the alt. This would apply to cases where the local name is signed, as seen above. The USA Road Names wiki has its own solution to this issue:
Okay. While the Wiki doesn’t explicitly say the Highway name should be the primary, it’s misleading because the example used is a highway primary name.
There are lots of roads like this, where the local name is used on signage, even though the highway name is also technically correct and needed for, as you mentioned, highway continuity.
Having said that, I believe if the local name isn’t as widely advertised as opposed to the route: highway name, the route: highway name should take priority, as that’s the name people will see more.
Here’s another example of a route: local name being used instead of the route: highway name, even on the Big Green Signs.
I suspect I put that example in. Though it occurs to me that in some cases where I’ve been updating such roads, I’ve been using the local name with the route number as the primary (e.g. this road in Junee has
Primary: A41 - Main St, None
Alt: Main St, Junee
Alt: Olympic Hwy, Junee
Alt: A41, None ( :oops: for the inconsistency)
Principle of least surprise makes sense. We may get some issues where the street signs in Street View are out-of-date so what we set might not reflect what’s there at the moment, but hopefully URs should resolve that.
Personal opinion, principle of least surprise is good. If what I hear matches what I see all is good with the world.
Sometimes when I’m not sure of the distance and there are two turns close together I’m frantically searching for a sign that matches what I’ve just heard.
