Montana Cadastral Road Accuracy?

Map Editors Community United States Montana
1

Per the Montana Wiki (https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Montana#GIS_Resources), the Montana Cadastral is a framework of property boundaries along with associated land ownership information (who owns what and where). The Montana Cadastral is maintained by the Montana State Library, not the DOT.

I recently come across instances where roads have been named/renamed based on the Cadastral information that are inconsistent with official DOT sources, primarily the state highway map (http://www.mdt.mt.gov/travinfo/docs/2016-mt-highway-map.pdf) and the functional classification map (http://mdt.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=3fe8695311b04116bdbbb776d44dd96b).

I initially thought there was only one case of this problem, but just came across another. So far, all are in the areas of Prairie, Fallon, and Wibaux Counties, but it is enough that I now have no confidence in the Cadastral road names.

I’d like to suggest a caveat be added to the MT Wiki that the Cadastral information should not be used as a authoritative source for road names.

2

I agree with adding a note to use MT GIS first. Bet most of those roads have my name on them.

3

I wasn’t aware that Cadastral was somewhat “crowd-sourced” and not an official DOT dataset. I’m 100% in agreement that GIS and official DOT sources should be used. Thanks for bringing this up.

4

CluelessBillingsDriver, yes, they do, but whodoneit wasn’t important so I didn’t bring it up. :smiley:

Besides, it exposed a road-naming issue we didn’t realize we had, and that’s not a bad thing.

5

I agree that the signatures on existing segments is not the focus, but the great catch from banished allows us to adjust our wiki instructions for corrective action.

6

All I know is that I am a better editor now, because of Banished.

7

The MSL receives the road data from the counties, cities, reservations, etc. I imagine the small counties you described may not have provided good data to MSL, but what other data was available?

BTW the MDT off-system road names are definitely inaccurate - by their very nature MDT is saying - we have this data, but we don’t own or maintain these roads and don’t vouch for the name accuracy. So just because it’s on the MDT map don’t take it for certain either, unless it’s an on-system route (and then there will still be local names above/beyond the MT-XXX name)

So sometimes gotta use all available sources and go with what you think best.

8

BTW, I have added Cadastral roads to WME GIS Layers - but only the smaller non-highway roads. It can be turned off when you’re working in a county that provides good data.

GIS Layers looks like this now:

Highway Mile Markers
State - Parcels (MSL Dept of Rev. Parcels w/property address label)
State - Address Points (MSL rural driveway entrances)
State - MDT Roads / Hwys (MDT on-system arcGIS service)
State - MSL Cadastral Roads (MSL off-system roads)
…
followed by counties for those that have arcGIS services.

9

I agree with MacroNav’s position about the GIS sources. I believe that we should use sources that fall within allowed external sources and when a conflict exists, use our best judgement to make a decision on which source to use. Worst case scenario, a Wazer will submit an Update Request and we can update the maps accordingly.

I also really appreciate you maintaining the GIS sources for the GIS Layers script in the state. That script has been an invaluable resource and has really changed editing for the better throughout the country. I appreciate that you made it especially beneficial to Montana editors. Thanks.