NJ - Road Classifications

Map Editors Community United States New Jersey
1

As a former resident of NYC and NJ I’ve been focusing a lot of my “spare” time in NJ. Right now I have focused on major problems and major junctions. I just finished the entire GSP from end to end (few things to double back on) for example.

Anyway, I want to discuss how to type the highways. We have loose rules and then apply exceptions, but I think we have lots of exceptions in the area :wink:

Typical standards:
Freeway = Interstates and anything truly grade separated with on/off ramps (so all but the very souther bits of the GSP)
Major Highway = US Highways
Minor Highway = State Highways
Primary Street = County Routes and other main connectors

My thoughts so far on exceptions/tweaks for NJ:

1.) Make the 500 series County Routes Minor Highway since they serve as an extension of the state highway system. All other County Routes (6xx, 7xx, 8xx, etc) would remain primary streets.

2.) Major portions of State Routes like 4 and 17 should easily be bumped up to Major Highway due to lack of traffic signals and number of lanes.

3.) May be some cases to bump DOWN a US Hwy or two to Minor Highway depending on what other roads are near by.

Any thoughts? The first one (County Routes) is probably the biggest. The others are on a case by case basis.

2

I spent a good portion of time on the GSP from the Mullica River on south, and I agree with your assessment. The only stretch that should not be Freeway is the area between mile markers 8-11 where the exits are at traffic lights. I also agree that US Hwys should be Major Highways. I have made 3 NJ state roads Major Highways based upon the type of road (jughandles, both at grade and split grade junctions): State Rtes 38, 70 & 73.

I have been changing all the 5xx county highways to Primary Roads, but based on how many of these roads are used, I could definitely understand the Minor Highway designation (especially Rt 561 through Camden County & Rt 541 through Burlington County as prime examples). That would also give the extra road-type layer to give to 6xx & 7xx routes.

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3

Also, I agree with the assessment that some US Hwys could be designated as Minor Highways…such as US Hwy 9 in Atlantic & Cape May Counties. I have some debates in my local area (northern suburbs of Philadelphia) with another local editor on how to designate Primary Roads. I am more free with making exceptions while he is more rigid with criteria. There will always be some difference in opinion, but at least there should be general guidelines in place with the understanding that sometimes road design should take precedence over the type of route number attached to it. Having a Major Highway that carries 10,000 cars per day just because it has a US shield while a 6 lane divided road that carries 45,000 cars per day is designated primary road because it’s a 6xx county route makes little sense to me.

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4

Yep, I saw your name on the GSP :slight_smile: I just finished every single exit ramp to/from the parkway from one end to the other earlier today (finished today, not doing all the work today) as well as adding north/south indicators. So the Parkway should be virtually complete and correct now.

I have the southern section of the parkway alternating from Freeway to Major Highway as appropriate. Take a look and see if you agree.

I’m glad you agree with the 500 series routes. It all of a sudden hit me the other day as a possibility. A few of those routes are 80+ miles long and go through many counties. And in some rural areas there aren’t really any other highways at all.

Your description of the State Routes that would be made into Major Highways is right along the lines of what I was thinking.

As for US Hwys downgraded to Minor Highway, if it is the only “highway” in the area, I’d leave it Major. But if it parallels something else that is “bigger”, then down to Minor it goes.

Hopefully we can get a few more voices to chime in. I can edit state-wide, so I can do some mass changes of types if needed. I’d rather fix the roads at the same time of course, but we may want to do the type change just to establish the pattern and hope other editors catch on if they don’t read the forums :wink:

5

The more I study it the more I am inclined to downgrade US highways to Minor when they are one one lane each way. I haven’t started yet in my area, but I probably will in a few weeks. It is more in line with the current Wiki delineations anyhow. There is no mention of US vs State, just type. From observing the posts in the forum, it looks like most of our other high volume editors agree.

What are you using for your official mapping data source?

6

Jon, I agree 100% on downgrading US Highways to minor when they’re not high capacity in design. A great example is US Hwy 13 in Bensalem township. My office is on US 13 just south of Street Rd @ I- 95, and there is no logical reason it should be designated as a ‘Major Highway’. it’s one lane each way with a center turn lane, and has a traffic count of 14,000 cars per day. It parallels I-95 for miles, so it is only used for local traffic. With that in mind, it’s barely on the radar as a highway at all.

For New Jersey, I have been using the Functional Classification Maps on NJ DOT’s website here: http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/refdata/roadway/fcmaps.shtm

For PA, I have been using the Pennsylvania County Type 10 Maps on this PennDOT page: http://www.dot.state.pa.us/internet/bureaus/pdplanres.nsf/infoBPRCartoCountyType10

7

The GSP looks great, I was worried about someone coming along and changing the road type through Cape May County where those 3 exits are located. I have a quandary regarding how to handle the exit within the Atlantic City rest area just north of US 30. How should the roadways/ramps be named to let people know they’re using a legitimate exit onto Jimmie Leeds Rd while passing through a rest area? Besides being a completely bizarre concept, it has to be confusing to someone using Waze to route them to an unfamiliar area. I would think they might automatically disregard good directions because they think Waze is mis-routing them through a rest stop.

As far as editing rights, I have AM clearance for all of NJ south of Long Branch through Flemington on southwest to Stockton. I can focus on that section if you want to work on the areas to the north.

Also, I know based on another forum post that jondrush is working on the EWR area and I believe he has universal editing rights. Maybe we can split the state into thirds?

8

There are a few rest areas with exits through them up and down the GSP. I am not 100% sure of the best way to map them. I mean you’d basically need ramps running through the entire service area from one end to the other, through the parking lots and park and ride lots etc to avoid routing penalties.

I think for a few service areas I used ramps in that manner. In others I just used streets and parking lot roads. It would be nice if one or the other type generated some URs and then we could figure out which works best :wink:

And as far as I can remember/tell from street view, none of those exits are actually signed. All signs just mention the service area. So do we break convention and label it as “Exit to Service Area / Jimmie Leeds Rd” instead of “Exit to Service Area”? Probably not a horrible solution since very few people would ever see that instruction. They’d either be taking a route that uses Jimmie Leeds Rd or they plotted a route to the Service Area itself.

Anyway, in general, all the service areas should have roads in the right places now. Just a matter of what type to use. I even put named landmarks over them and the major toll plazas :wink:

I’m all for sharing the work! But the high importance roads may benefit from a level 4/6 editor doing the work so we can lock it at that high level. Or at least one of us should come through and apply the lock at our level once the work is done.

I know myself, jondrush, bgodette, and banished have all worked around EWR lately. And even with us experienced editors attacking, there is still lots of work needed.

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If I may interject…I have no real knowledge of New Jersey, but this is regarding US Highways in general, and the possible future implementation of “Avoid Freeways” function (freeways being defined as Limited Access Highways that only junction with other roads via ramps).

The US Highways can theoretically be used to travel anywhere in the US. The US Highway system is still mostly intact and runs coast to coast and from Mexico and the Gulf Coast to Canada.

In the event that the Avoid Freeways function is ever fixed and functional, I think it would be important that these US Highways be at the highest rank, just below Freeway. In my opinion the correct implementation of Avoid Freeways would be to favor Major Highways, using Freeways or Minor Highways only when there’s no other easy option.

Even though a US Highway may pass through a densely populated city, or be reduced to a two-lane, in most cases, it’s still going to be the best option over any other minor highway if Freeways aren’t an option.

Therefore, I’d like to suggest that if you’re considering demoting a US Highway, make sure there’s another Major Highway nearby that will do a better job without considering nearby Freeways.

10

Since my name was brought into this, I had to chime in… :smiley:

I have, on occasion, made rest/service area roads, Parking Lot roads. My understanding of Parking Lot Roads from the Wiki http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_label_and_name_roads#Parking_Lot_Roads arguably seems to be a better fit than a service road. “The ‘parking lot road’ designation is also very useful for indicating segments which are driveable but undesirable for routing…”

Secondly, I would want to think a whole lot more about changing US routes to a minor highway as this does not seem to be the norm. I’m looking at a paper road atlas (remember those?!) and US highways are consistently red, if not blue freeways. Where they are 4-lanes but don’t meet the freeway standard, they are yellow with a red outline.

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I understand your point Jason, but some US highways in our area are dreadful. I’d knock 'em all the way back to Primary street if routing desirability or efficiency was the only criteria. Segments of US 202 are a prime example.

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This is the criteria I personally use and would suggest. The only time I have demoted a US HIghway so far is when it has a bypass route which would be preferred for through traffic.

I am sure there are opportunities in NJ though. Often times the US Hwys are the worst maintained and lowest capacity of highways in the area as jondrush mentions. We do have to be careful and need to try to look at the big picture.

I like the concept of US Hwy = Major Highway unless … and State Hwy = Minor Highway unless … and County Rte = Primary Street unless

It is those pesky unless cases we need to figure out here. Like the 500 series county routes should be Minor Hwys.

I still say Service Roads should only apply to parallel or stub segments that have the same name as another road which carries through traffic. Sort of like local lanes, but usually just a few blocks long. A Service Road services businesses and residences. It is not a place to get services. Therefore I think Street, Ramp, and Parking Lot Road are the only things that should be used in a rest/service area.

I know the wiki doesn’t match that interpretation of service road, but what do you guys think? Or should we break that point off as a thread in the main editing forum?

13

I wouldn’t say there is much of a consensus yet. We were going to try to talk about it in Palo Alto some, but didn’t have enough time.

As you can tell I am a big fan of using the type of road (US vs State etc) as the primary and first deciding factor. So function based as opposed to physical based classification. Waze’s historical data and the road geometry itself should cover the physical aspects of the road.

14

Jon - If you go by PennDOT’s official 2011 tourism and transportation map here: ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/BPR_PDF_FILES/MAPS/Statewide/otm/2011/otmplot_pdf2011.PDF, it gives some credence to state vs. US highways not necessarily being equal to minor and major, respectively.

In particular, PennDOT considers PA 309 & PA 611 to be major highways, while it considers US 13 south of PA 413 and US 30 from Philadelphia to Malvern to be minor highways. Unfortunately, it does show US 202 to be a major highway throughout PA despite the stretches between Montgomeryville to Doylestown & north of Doylestown to Buckingham being less desirable routes than Upper State Rd & PA 263.

15

We seem to be on the same page with regards to demoting US Highways. For instance, if I were to take a ride up to Knoxville and want to avoid interstates, I’d take US-90 to US-11, and then I could drive US-11 all the way to Knoxville with only a short stretch on I-59 where US-11 runs concurrent and there’s no other option. It’s mostly 2-lane highway the whole way. There’s no other better route without hitting the interstate. Other than a few miles of local roads at the start and end of the trip and 8 miles on I-59, I could be at your doorstep driving US Highways. Similarly Hwy 90 can be driven 1600+ miles from western Texas to the Atlantic Ocean without ever touching an interstate and there are no better options. We don’t have much need to demote US Highways down south as there aren’t any other options.

The key is to make sure if you demote a US Highway, the alternates are designated as Major Highways so that you can have a continuous Major Highway route, and be conservative with the demoting.

This is the only thing that needs to be held to a national standard. The handling of state highways and county highways is going to vary on the local level and there’s always going to be all kinds of crazy exceptions to those rules. We have at least one state highway that is limited access and designated as Freeway on the Waze maps and we also have a lot of residential streets that are state highways and some of them are dirt roads. YMMV on that one.

16

Seems perfectly reasonable to use as a standard with the obvious exceptions as a caveat.

To take it one step further, my biggest confusion comes from when to use Primary Roads. From what I can tell, these road types are completely user identified as the base map import did not appear to have identified any such road type. As a result, I would think the criteria would be more open to interpretation. In my opinion, any road not designated as a highway but beingdesigned to carry a higher traffic capacity and/or being a connection between towns/cities or as an arterial connection between highways should be considered primary roads. What is your stance on that?

I feel like a service road would be a road that parallels a highway that might connect a series of businesses like gas stations or restaurants but as a frontage road or possibly passing to the rear of these businesses. Is my understanding correct? Can anyone explain how routing is affected by the use of this road type?

17

Man, and I wanted to start small with a subset of one state’s roads before touching on nation-wide standards :wink:

I agree with you Jason. Major Highway should represent the best non-freeway route in an area. Here in the mountains of East TN, the best non-freeway roads may be one lane each direction and twisty with lots of elevation changes. But they have a painted center line and shoulders and usually have guard rails! Compared to the other roads in the area, they are 1000 times better. But that same physical road in NJ would be a virtual cow path that would be lucky to be a County Route. And then even within NJ, compare some North Jersey roads with South Jersey. Or north west Jersey. That is why I am not a big fan of physical characteristics as the sole or primary determining factor.

To take it one step further, my biggest confusion comes from when to use Primary Roads. From what I can tell, these road types are completely user identified as the base map import did not appear to have identified any such road type. As a result, I would think the criteria would be more open to interpretation. In my opinion, any road not designated as a highway but beingdesigned to carry a higher traffic capacity and/or being a connection between towns/cities or as an arterial connection between highways should be considered primary roads. What is your stance on that?

True, Primary Street was not part of the TIGER basemap so any primary roads are a user made decision so far.

Your opinion is right along what mine is. I will add that I make sure every Interstate exit touches at least a Primary Street. If it wasn’t Primary, why is there an exit? And now that there is an exit, the road is at least a landmark and should be easy to find.

The lack of a tertiary highway type is why I thought using Primary Street for County Routes was a reasonable idea. These CRs usually meet all the requirements we have mentioned.

Routing should treat them as Street type. At least that is all I have ever heard.

I’m going to find some examples of what I think are service roads and I will start a new thread in the general Editing forum so we can hash that topic out.

So back to the original intent of this thread, any further comments on making 500 series county routes in NJ into Minor Highways?

For any exceptions for Minor/Major, maybe we should create a new thread for each road in this sub-forum. That way we can discuss the ins and outs of each situation without getting mixed up.

18

Well, I kinda felt like bringing up the loose definition of primary streets may have been needed as part of the county road discussion. Then again, I am diagnosed ADHD so my brain sometimes runs off on tangents. Kinda like my editing style.

For South Jersey, a good example would be US 30 where it’s one lane each way from the former Collingswood Circle at US 130 east to I-295 or maybe even all the way to the interchange with NJ 73 in Atco where most shore bound traffic using 73 jumps on 30 east. Preferred alternate routes include NJ 42/US 322 after the AC Expressway splits from NJ 42, CR 561, NJ 70 & NJ 73.

I feel like there are a lot of situations where 5xx roads should be Minor Highways, but I can think of just as many where the road type might not fit. My first example, CR 561 in Camden County is very easily a Minor Highway type and is probably a better highway than US 30, which closely parallels it. However, once it reaches the area of the former Berlin Circle @ NJ 73, it runs concurrent to 73 and then US 30 at several locations, only to split off for short stretches or on rural type roads, especially in Atlantic County.

My second example, CR 541 in Burlington County is sort of proxy extension of PA 413 beyond US 130 in Burlington. Then, the stretch of road from I- 295 & the NJ Turnpike that continues as the Mt Holly Bypass as a multi-lane, divided highway is most definitely a candidate as a Minor highway. Actually, that stretch up to NJ 38 is arguably a Major Highway type in my opinion. Below the Mt Holly Bypass however, it is less of a highway and more of a local connector of towns. Once it’s below Medford, it’s practically an afterthought with stop signs at intersections, etc.

We could hash this out in a similar fashion on every 5xx road type, so maybe we should establish similar criteria to the test for when to demote a US Highway to a minor highway type. Either that, or we just use Minor Highway as the rule and apply exceptions where it’s obvious to do so.

I think that’s a fine idea.

19

The rule for 500 series routes can simply mirror the others… CR 5xx = Minor Highway unless :smiley: And then we can discuss one by one for exceptions.

I think in most cases having the 5xx as Minor Highway is still an improvement over what we have now which is a mix of EVERYTHING. Regular Street, Primary Street, Minor Hwy, and thanks to IGN in some places, Major Hwy where it is so not appropriate.

20

I have been going through Camden County and marking the CR-5xx roads as ‘Minor Highways’ and the CR-6xx & CR-7xx as primary roads. I have never seen a CR-8xx; where are they located?

The more I make these updates, the more I see how much it makes sense. All the 5xx roads seem to have SR level signage at intersections/interchanges and are more likely to have highway-type interchanges with US & SR routes.

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