Assuming that the other thread requesting a test to see how Waze would say “NH” in front of a state highway was to give us the ability to change SR to NH. I’d like to take on this task of renaming all the state routes in NH from SR to NH if at all possible (though not sure how I’d be able to access the areas).
In any case, I was also wondering, when following routing, as a driver, I prefer the route number be given along with street name (route first, personnally). I’ve noticed that many times inside a city, the road name is what’s listed and the route is setup as an alternative name…unfortunately, Waze doesn’t say the alternatives. Are we allowed to label roads in cities with routes and names under the ‘street name’ field? (ie: “NH-202A / Walnut St” or “Walnut St / NH-202A” so both names are read, similar to highways?) As a driver, I would think this would be optimal.
Hi-
As a NH resident, it is very tough to determine if Street name or Highway Route number should be the preferred choice. In the cities/towns, the highway numbers almost become an afterthought, often not being shown. Leave the cities and hit the rural roads, and all you see is the highway signs.
Your suggestion for route name and street name is a good one, and should be seriously considered in this state.
The preferred method of naming is “whatever the locals use.” This normally means that you name the road with the street name in a town, and change over to NH-## out of town.
Naming the street name with both the street name and route number (i.e “NH-202A / Walnut St” or “Walnut St / NH-202A”) won’t work. In order for Waze to direct someone to an address on a road segment named like this, the user would have to enter “### NH-202A / Walnut St” into the app for it to match the address. Simplicity is the key.
The other alternative you have is to put the Street Name in, and add “NH-202A” as an alternate name, without a city name, in the Alt Names field.
It won’t help with routing, but it will make it easier for editors to follow state highway routes through towns.
In the meantime, the Regional standard is “Street Name” in town and Route number outside of towns. And the street name should match the addresses of businesses along the road.
I believe it’s important for local drivers to make the call as to whether the junction is considered in the city or not. Even within a city, many street names are not posted in deference for the Rte numbers. I almost got into a fight with my mother because Waze directed us onto a street name when the only signs were two Rte numbers. Also in Maine there were absolutely no street names visible but that’s all that was available to Waze so you just had to trust that your GPS was accurate enough (not possible on my current phone.)
Additionally, when signs fail to name the actual Rte but instead use “To US-25”, it seems pertinent to again go with what signs are available to the driver, at least for the first road segments out of a roundabout or ramp then switch out of the main intersection back to local street names.
It’s more that major intersections use Rte/Hwy numbers whether outside a town or not and between these intersections street names are more prevalent for signage. Alternatively street names are often used to exit off freeways in addition to hwy numbers. I’d suggest going with whatever is a higher priority or mentioned first on any visible signs. Freeways over Major Highways over Minor Highways, etc. if applicable to posted signs. It takes boots on the ground to get it right but then shouldn’t be overwritten by regional editors according to some arbitrary standard that fails to respect the reality of actually driving the route.
And to the original poster: redspawn2k2, I’m completely on board with you and would love to assist in renaming all the hwys’ primary and/or alt names to reflect the much needed change from SR to NH-###, but to eliminate confusion, I think routes will need to be changed all at once, within a single update cycle… which means either doing the entire state over the course of a weekend with a very active team… or going systematically through one or two hwys at a time. For example. I live in Keene and already have much of NH-101 in my editing area. I could take a trip to visit family in Lowell but drive the entire length of 101 all the way to the seacoast first, grab a lobster roll… and then take NH/MA-119 on the way back after visiting family to gain full access to that as well. Work with some similarly willing participants to get the project done in one go and then set a date for the next conversion project. It’d be sort of like a series of minor map raids… because not only would segments need to be altered, but connecting ramps, “To SR-###” segments, and perhaps even some place addresses along the way. Even one highway could potentially take a day or two to fully convert. 4-5 hours for a team working together over a weekend or something.
I currently have full access to NH-12, for example… but I’m waiting for a green light from someone that this is actually an official project before requesting the large unlock request that would be necessary for me to do… or to be promoted, whichever comes first. 
Thoughts on that approach?
Oh, and I should caveat since I mentioned a hwy crossing NH/MA border - it would have to switch between NH-119 to SR-119 for the portion it is inside MA… the only trick would to be sure to include NH-119 as an alt name in the segment before it crosses over into NH and vice versa: SR-119 as an alt name in the segment before crossing into MA - for best continuation… no need for Waze to announce that you go straight through the state borders.
I just had to add that since I know dmcrandall is likely to read this thread and would have said something similar given my last comment.
BTW, I just ran across this thread in the forum… and it’s final conclusion is that we are sticking to SR-### at least for now… so don’t make any changes yet - but we can prepare for them if they do come! ;0)
https://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=585&t=85078
SR-## is the official standard for the state.