In checking the Hunterdon map today NJ has updated the functional classification map to 2010 standards. There are minor changes made to Somerset which includes new minor arterials among others. I’ll focus on Somerset again to see what changes need to be made before branching out to neighboring counties.
It looks like several counties have been updated to reflect the 2010 census, and in them, a bunch of roads being upgraded to various types. I would imagine the remaining counties will be published soon.
I’ll start working on updating MH+ (Primary Arterial, Federal Route, and Urban Expressway) in the counties with the updated maps, since they need R5 editors.
Some head-scratchers though. I recall an arterial that started at one GSP exit and ended at another. It was almost as if the DOT engineers were daring drivers to bypass the freeway. The whole length was a a few miles, all within a single county.
I haven’t had a chance to check routing on sample mid-distance drives where Waze has been updated with FC.
In urban areas, a Primary Arterial road only needs to go through like 5-10 miles or so, and meet the area’s road type density requirements (urban principal arterials, including Interstates, other freeways, or urban expressways, must comprise between 5% and 10% of all public roads, by mileage, in any given area). Sometimes, urban primary arterial roads simply connect a few towns with no better nearby road to a better road further away.
That’s my point, PH. You had this county arterial more or less paralleling the GSP, in the GSP’s shadow, across one exit. That was the entirety of the route. II don’t think it was even 5 miles.
Hey, if it saves a toll without ruining traveling time, I wouldn’t take issue with it.
Personally, it was a shock when I first checked on the map right after the switch to the FC specs since there were some few radical changes in my area, but it is much more helpful in seeing the framework of how traffic is intended to flow in a given area. Things can look a bit silly in the editor–as for example, half of Mercer County is a a web of minor highways/urban arterials, but it’s at least a clear standard over the classifications of “State Route is X. 500-Series C.R. is Y. 600-Series C.R. is Z…but Road A is a total exception that only a local driver would know, and Roads B & C are extremely debatable as to what their status should be.”
Also, for a status update, I now have about half of Camden County covered, and Burlington and Mercer Counties have been updated to the most recent FC standard maps.
Hi, Leo,
In this case, you would lose lots of travel time. Some narrow roads, several traffic lights, several turns. There’d have to be a Medevac on the GSP to make this worth it.
The counter would be that you might need this local road to access one of those two GSP entrances from other local streets. In which case, I would think it is really a collector, not an arterial. I suspect we just have one of those quota situations.
Like I said before, much of these problems described are in areas where local neighborhoods have rejected construction of roads with better capacity, so the state ended up being stuck with designating 2-lane roads with parked cars, signals, and very little or no turn controls as arterial roads.