At the suggestion of GizmoGuy411, the wiki article has been re-edited to make it less Michigan-centric. After doing some research into exactly what may be the best universal term for the “Michigan Left”, we settled on the term “Median U-Turn Intersection”, or “MUTI”. It’s found in a number of states and even other countries, so “Michigan Left” became a less desirable primary term. The naming convention and other particulars as originally suggested and tweaked by sketch have not changed. A list of synonyms (including Michigan Left) as well as terms and links for similar traffic procedures are now included on the Michigan wiki page as well. At this point, it’s still considered a draft.
The naming convention was designed specifically for Michigan. Not every Michigan left in Michigan has a green sign, but many of them do, enough to make it desirable to implement them throughout the region for the sake of consistency.
I don’t know how well it’ll work in other areas, though. None of the Michigan lefts in the New Orleans area are signed like the ones around Detroit—rather, they have the same “U turn” signage as all the other U turns, so we label the segments “U turn” like all the other ones. Here, the difference between a U turn that’s used as part of a Michigan left and one that isn’t is the road type.
In other areas, I think I’d recommend building a convention based on the green sign, emphasizing the importance of the second “to”.
Apparently so!
I’ve been paying more attention over the past few months, but I believe that this is the first sign that I’ve seen with everything written out in detail–including both “to” instructions. Not a fan of the arrow directing me to go down into the ditch though…
What if one of the “U-turns” is at a traffic light that has cross traffic? Or has traffic coming from the left or right? What would be the best guideline to follow in this case?
https://www.waze.com/editor/?lon=-86.06747&lat=39.92517&zoom=6&layers=645&env=usa
^ Case in point, Southbound Allisonville Road at the U-turn to head to 96th Street East/ Allisonville Road North…There is a parking lot road that comes out from the right, and at the moment is believed to be apart of the traffic controlled intersection. This hasn’t been confirmed just yet, but I as well as another editor are going to check this are out in the next few days to confirm.
I haven’t been able to find a similar example yet, but once you drive it, it should be much easier to determine what could be done. If I understand your meaning though, by “traffic coming from the left or right”, there is now a traffic light for northbound Allisonville Rd to turn left into that strip mall in addition to having the same break in the median serve as a u-turn for Allisonville Rd S. Once you know more, we can discuss specifics for that particular intersection on your original thread. Depending on how it looks, you may want go the logical instead of physical route and have two segments. In that case, the median u-turn segment would have the existing naming convention, whereas the segment to turn left into the parking lot as well as turn left out of the parking lot onto Allisonville Rd N would be unnamed.
Here is an example showing the typical “ramp” median u-turn with a neighboring “street” segment that would need to be two-way in your case since it serves a different traffic pattern (which would also need 90 degree angles). This logical pattern works fairly well from a TTS perspective, but it was just a test and has not been implemented anywhere else in MI yet.
Here is an example if you don’t need to worry about a left turn into the parking lot from Allisonville Rd N. It has the median u-turn, continuation, and right turn into the parking lot all on the same node.
BTW, new information has come from staff saying segments should not be 5 m or shorter. I have modified the segments you linked, davielde, to make the bit between the ends of the U turn and Jackson Plaza street 6 m long.
MeridianHills, in the case you linked, it depends whether traffic can turn left into the parking lot from NB Allisonville or not. If not, just connecting the “ramp” at the entrance will suffice. If so, a two-segment solution will be desirable. I think this is what davielde explained already,
If you have not seen this, you might be interested.
http://www.katc.com/news/j-turns-changing-how-drivers-navigate-us-90/#_
One thing I note in the proposed - or rather one thing that I think makes sense to change - is that the first turn instruction (junction node) should be placed closer to the beginning of the turn lane. One of the complaints my daughter has made is that “waze is late giving instructions”. Altho waze notifies in advance the upcoming turn, making the connection closer to where users expect to enter the lane may be more helpful. The examples show the first left-turn node quite close to the actual turn.
Good point. Perhaps there should be a pic added to the wiki not only showing the smaller u-turn but also when a Michigan Left has a lengthy lane (and we should be more conscious of this while editing). Here is an example where it is working well–double left turn with a little over 100m before the actual u-turn. If we show have a sample like this though, we should clarify that the initial node has a micro-dogleg to still generate the “turn left” instruction.
Those are too early. The answer lies in the middle, I believe.
The best place to put it is at the point where the solid line begins. Putting it at the very beginning of the turn lane is too early an instruction. You don’t want the instruction to leave off the screen before you’ve actually made that movement.
Thanks sketch. Since it is currently locked at 5, could you please make the change to that example as well as the one just west of the intersection so that an image of the proper configuration can be created? I’ll try to throw an extra pic into the Michigan wiki today.
On it. You may wish to select the previous segment of Hall Rd when making the screenshots to imply the dogleg left turn instruction.
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I was actually midway through adding to my last post, so I’ll put it here instead:
For simplicity, some will make the turn around segment more or less straight sort of like here, though some take it to a further extreme. The idea is to keep it simple where there’s no chance that someone will be instructed to take a dangerous maneuver — like from that parking lot road on the Hall Rd example. Keeping it simple makes editing easier.
I subscribed to this for a little while, but I think it’s more important to have accurate navigational instructions. Instructions on the mostly-straight-across ones are too late to be accurate; likewise, those on Hall are too early to be accurate.
The best place for the instruction is at the start of the solid white line; depending on the state, crossing that line is either unlawful or discouraged. That’s where the instruction becomes crucial; after that, it’s okay if the instruction disappears from the screen after that, but not before. We also don’t want to encourage people to cross it.
I added a small section on “Junction Position” along with a pic:
“The initial junction ideally should be as close to the solid white line as possible (if present). This prevents a turn instruction from occurring too early or too late. In many cases, this will require adding a geometry node at the start of the segment at at the most detailed zoom level to generate the correct turn angle.”
Good work. I’d include 3 more words, “as close to the start of the solid white line as possible”, to be more accurate.
Three words makes a big difference in this case. Thanks for correcting it as that was the intention.
I am new to WAZE, but I was wondering how this was resolved (if it was resolved) as I am doing some map editing in the Rochester, Rochester Hills, Troy, areas. And not knowing all the history of this issue, I was wondering why we aren’t calling them what they are: “median crossovers”? That would tell drivers that the turn will not be at the intersection, but at a median crossover.
Using the names of the roads served gives the driver a more meaningful instruction ahead of time. So if you’re driving, say, west on Metro Pkwy and need to go south on Dequindre, instead of just seeing “← 4.3 mi | Median Crossover”, you see “← 4.3 mi | to Metro Pkwy E / to Dequindre Rd S”.
Much more useful. It also follows the general rules for ramp naming — “follow the big green sign”.
The resolution of this issue is found at the bottom of the first post of this thread. Draft Wiki guidance can be found here.
Just to add to the history, when faced with a number of seemingly synonymous terms used by MDOT and elsewhere while we were drafting the wiki page, our Regional Coordinator and I rejected “median crossover” as a synonym for Michigan Left because there are numerous unsigned median crossovers that wouldn’t get the same naming convention and road type. We settled on “median u-turn intersection” because we felt that while “u-turn” was synonymous with crossover, we also wanted to stress that these were only for the signed crossovers near major “intersections”.
There was talk in late March about extending this guidance nationally, and the redraft of the wiki page was going to revert back to “Michigan Left”. No resolution yet on that question though, and the principal Champs involved have been busy with more important redrafts that affect a larger audience.
I want to revisit the Michigan Median U-Turn Intersection standard to propose a few revisions:
- Eliminate the requirement for “proper signage”
- Change the requirement for a 45-90 degree angle at the lead-in first junction to be <45 degrees.
- Add a Lock Standard section
1. Eliminate the requirement for “proper signage”
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For a variety of reasons, there is not good consistency for when MUTI signage has been physically signed. The Woodward/7 Mile junction has no MUTI signage for any direction. If I were driving here, I would be reassured if Waze gave me the same full TTS instructions (to Woodward Ave N / to 7 Mile Rd E) here as at most other MUTIs.
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For the other turn-arounds (that don’t service 2 different roads) that are generally unsigned, we currently configure with No Name. Going north on Woodward and needing to route to a sidestreet on the west side of Woodward, gives “Turn left on Woodward Ave south” two times – the first time due to name inheritance. Waze announcing the name of the u-turn lane as “Woodward Ave south” is wrong because the people do not consider the “left-turn lane” leading up to and through the u-turn segment to be named for the cardinal direction going the other way. A properly configured MUTI works much better: “Turn left to Woodward Ave south” to move into the left turn lane, and then “Turn left on Woodward Ave south” to actually transition off the MUTI.
2. Change the requirement for a 45-90 degree angle at the lead-in first junction to be <45 degrees.
The currently written standard says “The initial junction ideally should be as close to the start of the solid white line as possible.” This prompts the Wazer to move into the correct left turn lane as soon as possible and avoid missing it due to traffic backups. Waze announcing the direction change as a TL is wrong. You KL into a left turn lane, and then TL from the MUTI back onto the main road.
3. Add a Lock Standard section
A MUTI, or turn-around lane, is part of the road it is connected to They should all be locked at the same level.
Reading back through the thread when this standard was drafted, a couple things stood out:
1.) Was naming inheritance a “thing” back when the initial standard was drafted? I don’t see a mention of it, and I would think it would be a consideration in keeping non-MUTI crossovers unnamed. If indeed this feature was added after this standard was considered, that alone should warrant us revisiting this.
2.) Was the double-left turn requirement based on any other factors besides it being the long standing practice at the time?