Are there any area managers around from the “Plains States”? I’m from Nebraska and didn’t see a state forum for us, Kansas, the Dakotas, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, etc. My poor little wazer is pretty loanly out in the high plains, but I know there are at least a few people around.
I was hoping to get some discussion on what classification people are giving to paved county roads and gravel roads that have higher speed limits and are heavily traveled. (Relative to our local populations)
Think about this. Do you want to be routed down a dirt road to get your destination? There are TONS of dirt roads and back roads that appear in West Texas that I have been deleting mainly because they’re private roads and really don’t have any need for them in the traffic navigation. Also, any roads that go through a field get deleted, too. I know a farmer isn’t going to give up a part of his crop for a road smack dab in the middle of it.
You can also check the Wiki for some guidance, too.
IMHO the most important things are (1) function and (2) consistency.
Something can be called a US route but that doesn’t make it function as a major highway in the towns it goes through. Where we are there’s an Interstate that still has some at-grade intersections – at those points it’s downgraded to a major highway instead of a freeway. In your case if a gravel road is used as a primary street, then I’d say that’s what it is. It could be the best route to use.
On the other hand consistency is very important, particularly in the state but also across the country. You don’t want out-of-towners to be surprised and dismayed. So you need to judge a road’s functionality not just by local standards but by wider standards as well. If the gravel road is used as a primary street but it’s bumpy or has a lot of rocks flying up and dinging up the car’s paint, I would call it something less than primary.
I’m not really talking about a “Dirt” Road. I’m talking about a named (with a street sign) gravel road that is maintained by the county. In Nebraska we have several county gravel roads which are commonly traveled by cars, school buses, etc. I’ve been leaving them labeled as “Street”, but the suggested speed limit is 50 mph (by the State’s own driver’s manual) so they disappear when driving down them.
I have been deleting any roads that go through fields and marking county roads that are “low maintenance” (that’s the signage posted on the road) as “Dirt Road 4x4”. Any long gravel driveways that could be accessed by the public.(driveways into Feedlots and other agricultural businesses) I’ve been marking as a “Private Road”.
Also, what are people doing about paved county roads? Typically they are asphalt or concrete and have speed limits between 50 and 65 mph in Nebraska. I’ve been marking the ones in my area as “Primary Streets”. Is this similar or consistent with what others are doing? I hate how when you travel down them they disappear when going 60 mph.
Are there any other people doing editing in “rural” areas that have similar issues?
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=3&lat=31.5085&lon=-99.92003&layers=BFTFTTTFTTTTTTTTTTTTFT
Take a look here and see if this answers your question. There’s still a lot of “ghost roads” or ranch/farm roads I need to go through. The yellow road is a state maintained road, the red one a US highway. I typically don’t use “primary streets” in the smaller towns.
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=2&lat=31.74034&lon=-99.94851&layers=BFTFTTTFTTTTTTTTTTTTFT
This town is slightly bigger (and about 30 miles away from the first one). Hopefully these answer your questions.
texmt - Thanks for the links! It looks pretty consistent with what I’ve done so far. I’ve been using “Primary Street” for paved county roads with higher speed limits. Here’s an example.
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=3&lat=40.70411&lon=-99.25745&layers=BFTFTTTTTTFTTTTTTTTTFT
I’ve deleted out most of the farm roads, assigned “Dirt Road” to a minimum maintenance road, and left the maintained gravel roads as streets. I did leave a lot of the driveways as “Private Roads”, which I’m not sure about. I think this seems to be consistent with what I saw in your maps.
I appreciate all the help everybody gives! I just want to make sure I’m getting information in correctly.
Delete these highlighted segments:
and make this a major highway:
You can also put the name of the town in the CITIES column of the address on these highlighted segments:
I typically leave county roads as a regular STREET. That way, it leaves it to the locals as opposed to someone who’s traveling through. If you make it a PRIMARY STREET, Waze will want to direct someone down the road when it may not be needed. If directions to the destination make the Wazer go down the county road, then it will, but the Wazer probably already knows that.
Even the county roads that are paved? It isn’t technically a highway, but it is a paved 60 mph road. It connects two state highways.
Also, why a major highway? It isn’t divided and has head to head traffic, so I thought that would be a minor highway?
Dunno about the first question, but as for the second: that looks like a major highway to me too. Its primary purpose is to get from one big place to another, and there just happens to be a town attached to the side of it right here in between. It’s two lanes but that doesn’t get in the way of its primary function.
This should answer your question to the “why a major highway”
The 3 things in that permalink are/were driveways, at least that’s what it looked like when I was looking at his permalink. If they’re not driveways and are actually roads of some significance, then I would stretch them out and make them for what they really are.
Just to be clear for the OP, it is not “consistent” to have a road “flopping” back and forth between major highway and freeway at specific points. From the standpoint of consistency, when a roadway which has been a freeway enters and area of mixed interchanges and direct intersections, that is where it should be all major highway. It is most irritating to find areas which someone read the wiki very concretely and there is 1 mile of major highway, then it switches to freeway for two interchanges, then back to major highway for 1 intersection, then back to freeway, etc. That is just plain silly and looks ridiculous. “Major Highway” is defined as being for a mix of interchanges and intersections.
Alan - Right now that is exactly what the highway is. Certain areas have been defined as Major Highway and others as Minor Highway. I’m currently adjusting my entire area to “Major Highway”, even the portion through town with lower speeds and intersections. Hopefully that is right…
If the road is mostly ramps, then it should be Major…
If the road is mostly intersections (traffic lights), then it should be Minor…
Quantity counts too. It can be all intersections, but if it bypasses most minor roads, it is still a major. Newtown Bypass is an example https://www.waze.com/editor/?lon=-74.9273&lat=40.22613&zoom=3&layers=BTTFTTTTTTTTTTTFTTTTFT
Really? The PennDOT Functional Classification maps consider that as Primary Arterial - Other… The same classification as PA-413/Newtown Pike…
Just looking around that area of PA, the road types are all over the place, show no consistency along roads, or across town borders… It’s almost as if everyone decided to just set the road type to whatever they wanted to…
See http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bureaus/pdPlanRes.nsf/infoBPRfunctionalclassmaps for links to what PennDOT considers the functional classification of the road…
But that’s the problem. Primary Arterial sounds an awful lot like major highway and minor arterial sounds an awful lot like a minor highway. Seems to me that there is good case that a primary arterial that is a four lane highway is a major highway. However on some of the classification maps primary arterials can be two lane roads, with a 25 mph speed limit through town. Those aren’t really major highways. The problem I have is I don’t really have roads with mostly ramps or mostly intersections. If a road requires ramps around here it gets ramps, if doesn’t it doesn’t. Thus, for the vast majority of cases here you are either all ramps (ie freeway) or all intersections (except when meeting a freeway). Which essentially leaves nothing to be classed a major highway as nothing is mostly ramps.
Didn’t we have this conversation over HERE?
I agree with you that a road should not keep switching types back and forth, in general. However, I believe that the area that Scotty beamed up 
in his post is NY-17 near Sanford. NY-17 (a.k.a. “I-86” and “Future I-86”) is indeed freeway for nearly 400 miles, from I-90 in Erie, PA to I-87 in Wallkill, NY – except for that one 2½-mile stretch in Sanford, where there are still a few at-grade intersections that NYSDOT hasn’t upgraded yet. So in this case, the switch from Freeway to Major Highway to Freeway again is proper … although really, it doesn’t have much effect (if any) on routing, since that’s pretty much the only major route through that area anyway.
Yup, that’s what I had in mind.
By the way the “v” is for “Volvo”. 