What was intended to be a quick edit to the current bridge place blurb on the Places page ended up warranting a new page. A lot of this is inherently how many editors approached these places, but I believe that the more complex considerations such as parallax, Falcon snapping, and [eventually] MEPs create the need for standardization of these places and their associated segments.
I also found it to be a good read. The only bridges I found in my area were set by L5 or L6. I don’t know if we have a region preference to require that level of approval. But I created a bridge where I thought one should go after reading your article. So, I don’t have suggested changes but only thoughts I struggled with when following.
Should the Waze-O document specify regional guidance for who should create and the lock level rather than just referring to regional guidance. Example SCR has bridge segment guidance but unless I missed it, not Bridge Area Place guidance.
I believe it is probably more common for the bridge endpoints to be in different cities since it is for significant bridges. I started to follow your advice “consider mapping two area places” but I did not. I somewhat thought it contradicted the Entry Point guidance. The bridge had a community website and the attraction other than navigation was scenic overlook and long bicycle/jogging path. I leaned to a single AP for that.
I don’t think it is necessary. I have been adding some Bridge places, but I only locked them high because there wasn’t national guidance at the time (and I didn’t want my bridges to be deleted :lol:), but now that we have this, it should be safe to lock at normal lock levels.
It does say consider mapping two separate places, not a requirement though. But maybe that could be clearer?
That was meant for just state and country crossings, as you can check none for city but not none for state. I’m not sure if a majority of bridges under these standards would be crossing between states countrywide, though I could see that being the case in certain parts of the country where the state borders are a river.
The default is to select the majority state/country and go to the two area places if you have a special case where you might need need two places. That’s probably more on the country end of the spectrum - I’ve been considering it for the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls so some one could search Canada or US as a destination side to get out to walk the bridge from their side (since MEPs aren’t live and some one may be looking for a specific country in search for that case).
Think this is a bit too complicated since multiple entry points are not working yet particularly for when you have the different directions of approach on spans that are one way.
Also when over water not sure that you need separate area places to prevent covering the water.
Seems we aren’t following the usability and simplicity principles. Why have two bridges displayed in search. Having the multiple entry points for a bridge that isn’t normally a destination doesn’t seem to meet simplicity.
There’s specifically a note there saying that MEPs aren’t live and which point would be used for routing. We have other pages with that note and MEP standards already written, so I don’t see the issue with having the guidance ready if we already have it listed elsewhere for other topics. If you are suggesting that, then you may want to consider a new post where we can decide on changing those other pages as well to get everything consistent.
It’s not separate places covering the water, it’s one place - look at the screenshot example given. It’s only 4 extra geometry points on a straight set of bridges to make that thin section to make it appears as two places - I don’t see that as so much of a deviation from simplicity (that’s way less geometry points than most falcon segments needed as a fix). And that’s only one place in search.
You’re overlooking usability here. When you have a place on divided or multi-span bridge, that’s going to route all users to whichever direction is closest to the center or the single entry point. You’re now losing rending the app partially unusable where it could be. Is having a second choice of an entry point that complex that it makes it worth the simplicity? We get URs near NYC for users who use the Mario Cuomo Br as an ‘add a spot’ waypoint to avoid the NYC routes between New England and the Mid-Atlantic. They need to be able to select EB or WB (which prod can’t yet, but again, this is for the future), otherwise they’re going to get directions sending them to the wrong span and out of the way.
As for the guidance to potentially map two places (because I’m not sure if that’s what you were referring to as well):
It says consider. As I gave my example earlier in the thread here, if some one is searching for the Rainbow Bridge overlooking Niagara Falls, they might be confused to see a Canada result (or vice versa with a US result). There may be other bridges with a similar need between states and countries. It’s a last resort, not the primary guidance.
