This is an idea that I had about naming state highways when they have a street name when passing through a city, at least until Waze is able to configure 2 street names in the new editor.
I try to look at this from the point of view of someone who is completely unfamiliar with an area. When driving through rural and sub-rural areas, I find that the numbered state highway signs are usually more prominent than the street name signs. So I think having the state highway number first, with the street name in parenthesis, is a better way to label such roads.
This is also based on the state highway label being relatively short (LA-1 instead of State Highway 1). It would be a bit unwieldy if a street label looked like “State Hwy 3235 (S Alex Plaisance Blvd)”.
In areas where the street name is more prominent than the state highway designation, usually in large cities, maybe the order could be reversed: “Barataria Blvd (LA-45)”, although that creates some inconsistency.
The current guidelines in the wiki state to use the local name.
I will note, for the record, that I am not sure this is best in all situations/locations. Waze themselves has even stated once that the primary name should be the highway/interstate name. This may be an area of the guidelines which needs some discussion and rework. Each time it’s been brought up in the past, it was left as-is for consistency.
Not the case in a lot of areas around here (in N Georgia) as signage is really inconsistent in whether the route number or street name is used (Experiment Station Rd and Hog Mountain Rd are signed as “S.R. 53” at most intersections, for example).
I think having both is a good compromise for now… until whenever Waze adds support for alternate names/badges :?
It would be better to either not enter anything else at all or use Cartouche to enter the alternate names. When Waze supports multiple display, it will not be using the format you are using there and you’ll have to go back and edit every segment in every city you did that to, if you’re still around, or someone else will have to. Please follow the naming conventions in the wiki, including using alternate names fields.
This is something that should be decided after they finally figure out how we’re going to handle road badges/shields. My preference would be for editors to gain the ability to add shields to roads, in which case it would be easy to decide what to name the roads: whatever is on the signs at intersections. The map on the client would show [ 1 ] and the TTS/directions display would say “turn left on Main St”. But until this is solved, it doesn’t really make any sense to make any changes. So follow the wiki guidelines until then.
I (or someone else) will have to do that regardless because the already existing alternate names are useless at this point. Most alternate names are already gone in my area thanks to the geometry bug (and many are extremely incorrect as is), so I think correcting or adding more is pointless until the functionality is bug-free and integrated into WME.
So until that happens (whenever that might be), I have to work with the tools that are available to me to provide information to make the navigation experience better for the users in my area.
They don’t show on the map.
They don’t generate shields.
They aren’t used by other search providers.
They may used by Waze’s own search: I searched for an address on US Hwy 20 in Cleveland and it gave me what appears to be the right address on Euclid Ave. I say “may” because I did another search for an address on US Hwy 322, and got an address on Superior Ave, which does not list US Hwy 322 as an alt name.
Regardless, if the correct street name is used for the road, alt names shouldn’t be necessary, should they?
I use them for segments which are simultaneously multiple interstate/us/state route numbers. Oregon also uses named highways which I set in alt names. These you can see in all other map providers and my hope is one day that Waze will as well.
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If it looks strange, or I used bad grammar or misspelled anything, it’s my phone’s fault.
The problem is, should Waze be usable until this happens? Waze has been talking about this since the beginning but has not done anything, in fact they have gone backwards in the new editor.
According to the guidelines, name it by what the street addresses are.
But I just broke the guidelines again the other day. The freeway exit is named road A/ road B, at the end of the exit ramp at the road there is a sign that shows road A with an arrow to the left, and road B with an arrow to the right. There are no other signs anywhere. Addresses on the road are named C, Waze had the road labeled C. So the other day when I drove down the ramp to the road, Waze told me to turn on road C. I saw the sign for road A, saw the sign for road B, looked around and thought where the hell is C? I noted the spot. When I got home I pulled up the county government GIS and sure enough the road is named C. I violated the Waze guidelines and named the roads A & B, because for anyone who uses Waze for navigation C is useless. So now Waze provides correct and useful directions. And I have done this many times now.
But according to the guidelines I should have left it as C with Waze giving bad directions and just hoped that maybe, someday, hopefully, Waze might fix their issues.
I say label roads as to what is going to work for the driver today. If there’s a giant sign with an arrow that says A, name that road segment A so that waze will tell the driver to turn on A.
There are exceptions to any guidelines. Personally, if in doubt, use the US or state highway numbers. There’s almost always a sign for those.
When you got directed to Road C, did you look at the display to see where to go? It should’ve been obvious at a glance.
Sure, it would be nice if all of these features were active, but this is a whole lot more than any other navigation software will give you. Waze can’t drive the car for you (yet).
This is how I do it. I really only use Papyrus to connect roads and for turn restrictions. I use the Cartouche as I name the primary road name the local name (i.e. Main St) and the alternate as the route number (i.e. US Hwy 40). This is how I understood it from the Wiki. As we know there are issues with duplicate roads names listed in the segment due to software issues. I also due it this way for when Waze adds the feature to show what road someone is on. It will look better and will be more informative to the Waze IMO.