OK, maybe these have been raised before, but I’ll raise them again.
I live in New Mexico, where some of the streets in some of the towns are actually dirt roads. I’m sure this is also the case in some part of the rural Midwest. The issue is how to describe them. Waze gives us two choices: Dirt roads/4x4 trails, or streets. I actually had a user submit a problem saying that the street was a dirt road, and wanted it changed! So, what’s the proper label for this? Leave as a street, because it’s named and has houses along it, or dirt road/4x4 trail, because that what it’s a dirt road, but definitely not a 4x4 trail? I’ve also got a road near my town that is paved except for a two or three mile stretch, where it is dirt/gravel. Making this stretch a dirt road/4x4 would probably complicate directions, as Waze has a setting to avoid dirt roads when it probably means more like 4x4 trail. Really, I think there’s a big gap between a dirt road and a 4x4 trail. I’d recommend Dirt/gravel road and 4x4 trail be separated.
I understand that Waze currently considers parallel but separate roads to be separate and not linked. Therefore, indicating “other lane” doesn’t mean anything. So, anytime I would choose “other lane” to describe a location actually puts it on my left shoulder. This might be difficult for Waze to actually fix. What I believe would be a good compromise would be another location indicating “median” to indicate the space between the two parallel lanes. I often get police cars or broken-down cars in the median strip.
Definately something I would like to see. I don’t have far to drive to find dirt roads that are in better shape than some of the paved roads. I even added a junction where one road goes from dirt to asphalt just in case they ever decide to seperate dirt from 4x4, until then I use roads.
A dirt road is a dirt road whether it has a name or houses on it or not. There’s an option to avoid dirt roads, and if the dirt roads aren’t labeled as such, that option won’t work. If you have that option turned on, but you navigate to an address on a dirt road, Waze will still get you there, but will keep you on paved roads as much as possible on the way.
It’s of your judgement as a map editor on how to classify the road. If the road is not suitable for automobiles to drive on because it is only able to be navigated by a 4x4 - mark it as a Dirt Road / 4x4 trail. If the Wazer has the setting on to avoid Dirt Roads (default) - Waze may not route there (and it could be an issue if the Wazer lives on that street). I have not tested whether Avoid Dirt Roads will 100% avoid them…
Otherwise leave it as street. No need to finely define concrete vs. asphalt vs. dirt as a road surface. We don’t need yet another road classification.
But I would rather never to be routed onto a dirt/gravel road, even if it is a valid maintained street. I see Dirt Road/4x4 trail as an “or” and in my opinion, I would set these as dirt roads because that’s what it is. As was mentioned, if marked as “dirt road/4x4 trail” it will still route you to an address on the dirt road and it will avoid that road if it can if I have it set to avoid. I see no reason not to type it as such.
The problem is there is a big difference between dirt roads and 4x4 trails. The dirt roads around here are as easily navicable in any weather conditions as the paved roads. Whereas a 4x4 trail you need at least 1’ of clearance all 4 wheels turning and you still wouldn’t want to try them during or after a good rain.
I would like to mark dirt roads as such for people that don’t want to use them however without some way to diferenciate roads from trails I am very hesitant to do so.
I don’t understand why your hesitant. Could you explain more why dirt roads, however good they may be, should be differentiated from other unpaved roads? To me, if it’s not paved, it’s not paved. If I select only paved roads, I want only paved roads.
I guess it would be useful if you want an option to have “Good Un-Paved Roads” - well maintained dirt roads, in other words (which aren’t existent in my area). However, it’s hard to tell from aerials and GPS tracks if a dirt road is maintained to a point of being considered “good”.
gettingthere, there’s a new option in the latest client version for dirt roads to either “Allow”, “Don’t Allow”, or “Avoid Long Ones”. I have “Don’t Allow” seems to completely avoid dirt roads. I marked a couple of streets as Dirt Roads that are so bad that they barely qualify as paved, and Waze now goes to great lengths to avoid them. When I had “Avoid Long Ones” on, it routed over one that only had one segment of Dirt Road, but avoided the one that has about 8 segments.
scruffy151, if it’s actually a 4x4 trail, like Pedestrian Boardwalks, Walking Trails, Stairs, and Railroad tracks, it either shouldn’t be on the Waze map, or it should be completely disconnected from the road network. That’s one of those non-drivable road types that provides no benefit to the Waze model. That’s how you differentiate between a dirt road and a 4x4 trail.
So if it’s a navigable dirt road, mark it as such, but the guy who doesn’t want to risk scraping up the bottom of his Corvette, or get it all dusty will have the option of not routing on it.
The road I grew up on in Alabama was dirt (go ahead with the jokes, I can take them), but it was graveled every few years, limed annually and packed and graded regularly, and plenty wide enough for two cars to pass. It was packed quite hard and no more difficult to navigate than many of the paved county roads in the area. It was a very far cry from a 4x4 trail, and I’d be very hesitant to put it anywhere close to the same category, but it was still a dirt road all the same.
Those are the kinds of dirt roads I think of when I hear the phrase dirt road…nothing at all close to a 4x4 trail. There are still a lot of those in more rural areas of the south. In my opinion, those road types should be split to account for the difference.
Or again, if they are they good of quality - type street is a viable option.
I have seen many paved road that are so bad that they are worse than the road you are describing. Am I going to reclass roads with potholes as something other than street? No.
I think that we are being hyper sensitive here. There are already too many roads types to choose from. We don’t need more.
Wow, good discussion all. Didn’t think I’d hit such a nerve here. I guess it’s all in the eyes of the driver, or the area manager, to decide how to categorize such routes. Perhaps what is needed is a Waze definition for each type of road, and have that in the FAQ.
Now that I’ve stirred up the pot with high quality, graveled and oiled dirt roads versus pothole-riddled, bone-jarring paved streets, how about the difference between a street, primary street, minor and major highway, etc?
We have road definitions in the Wiki. But nothing can be set in stone. There’s always going to be exceptions. And almost every AM is going to find an exception for any given road.
A good example is the world server where there are road definitions by country. People here had to find ways to translate the US definitions into local street names.