It seems to be time to reconsider the standard naming convention for state highways in Mississippi.
The proposed new standard is “MS-xxx”.
I have started to see this on signs and the old standard was more the least wrong than the right way to do it. So assuming there are no complaints in about a week we will be changing the standard.
Since there have been no objections “MS-xx” is the new standard for Mississippi state highways.
I have updated the wiki with the new standard.
As soon as they weed out the bugs in the editor, I’ll get to it.
Now, this may be something that needs to be addressed by the higher ups, but since Mississippi has a relatively poor showing for area managers, is there any way the active AMs in the state could be granted temporary editing rights to wider parts of the state in order to effect this change?
Until we get working shields/badges I had just planned on continuing as I have been; updating the names while doing other things and hunting the ones that are just “Hwy xxx”.
Have they been putting “MS-xx” on signs now?
I drive the I-59 corridor a lot, usually every few months, and I recall seeing “SR xx” on signs, typically the little green ones on overpasses.
Most of the signs are just the number in a oval. I haven’t seen another “MS” sign since I made the earlier post and am starting to wonder if I was mistaken.
Yeah, it’s hard to find a sign with it spelled out, since shields are used for almost every purpose out in the world. The little green signs on interstate overpasses—which tell you the road carried by the overpass and often what mile of the interstate you’re on—don’t use shields on the other hand, presumably because of the potential for confusion from people thinking it means they’re ON state route whatever.
Different states do it differently, and that got me thinking about a potential source for state highway name standards. The ones in Mississippi use “SR”, and in Alabama they say “AL”. Interestingly, Mississippi uses a generic oval state route shield, while Alabama uses a shield shaped like Alabama.
DOT literature and the news and things like that can provide guidance, too, but they can sometimes mislead. I’ve heard “LA 48” and also “Highway xx” on the news here. I’ve actually seen “SR-xx” on the La. DOTD website! But the shields themselves say LA and that’s how we say it, so of course that’s what it’s gonna be.
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What the roads are actually signed as seems to be highly variable throughout the state.
In DeSoto County, for instance, typically just says “Hwy 305” or “Hwy 302”, with the shields only being present at intersections between other US or state highways. In other counties in the general vicinity I’ve seen them signed as “Hwy”, “SR”, “State Hwy”, “State Rte”, and I think on a couple of occasions have seen “Mississippi” spelled out on one of the larger overhead signs at a big intersection.
None of the overpasses on I-55 in my area have the road names on them, so even that is not consistent across the state.
As I brought it up before, the “MS-xxx” nomenclature came off of the Mississippi GIS site.
It seems the general sentiment is that whatever it is, it should be an abbreviation rather than some words spelled out, and I agree with that. It saves space and time in the client and the editor, and IMO it looks better.
Whether to choose SR- or MS-, I don’t know. I’m leaning towards SR- personally, based on what I know, but you’re certainly more familiar with Mississippi in general (I’m pretty much an expert at I-59, but that’s about it).
I do think that signage should be considered with far more weight than a departmental website, since drivers are going to see signs, not websites, while they’re using Waze. What the bulk of signage actually says, though, is a factual inquiry.
Generally, if it’s likely “Emm Ess” will cause confusion where “State Route” won’t, I would suggest “SR-” as the standard.
The problem with that is; of the signs that are not shields, “Hwy xx” or “Highway xx” is by far the most common. I personally think that naming convention has no place in a GPS app or map of any kind, it should be defined state, US, county, or interstate as appropriate.
Eh, I wouldn’t say so. I consider it an advantage Waze has, or can have, over other map providers in certain markets—especially places like Michigan, where “M-25” and the like are part of the local parlance, or Louisiana, where “LA 48” and “Highway 48” are used interchangeably, but “LA 48” is on the signs.
Where it’s just “highway” or “route”, leave it at “SR-”. But there’s a certain value in saying things in a way that’s more agreeable to users in certain places.
Let me ask this then, is there any way to get it to pronounce “MS” as Mississippi and to have shields for roads named “MS-xx?”
Locally, state roads are just called “305” or “178” if there isn’t a more commonly used local street name. I can’t recall anyone ever having said “State 305” or “Mississippi 178” in general conversation. I would suppose if I were giving directions to someone unfamiliar with the area I would probably include one or the other, but there is no common colloquialism that I am aware of.
I think there is some added value in having the roads named “MS-xx” or whatever state the road is located in, so that to someone unfamiliar to the area would have a positive reinforcement as to what state’s highway they are on.
As to the first, effectively, no. At least not easily or anytime soon. Staff has been largely unresponsive on changing TTS behavior. I can’t remember anything changing since the “pause for slashes” was added forever ago.
As to the second, yes. When I have a little free time, I’m planning to get a list together of state standards so I can submit a long list of shield formulas to Waze. Similar things have been done in Australia recently.
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Hmm…well, that muddies the waters a bit. On one hand, if getting the shields done is fairly easy, I’d just say leave it alone, but at the same time, not having the TTS for a driving app could be a bit distracting from a user point of view.
I’m not really dead set on any particular standard, just that there is one and it works well with the app.
I converted probably 95% of the roads in my area to the new standard, but things are cleaned up enough that it wouldn’t be too much work to go and change it to something else.
Yeah muddy it is. That’s why I wasn’t adverse to changing. In my opinion “SR-xx” and “MS-xx” are the least bad solutions, neither is a good solution.
I guess the best thing would be if the TTS would expand “MS-xx” to “Highway-xx”.
Go with MS-xx in that area. That is where that format has the highest penetration allready.
The area that hasn’t been updated to MS-1 is probably just outside of my area. It appears that the MS-XX format is probably going to get submitted to generate shields at some point, so I guess we’re sticking with that.
It appears that Waze’s TTS has been updated so that now MS-xx is pronounced “Mississippi xx” instead of “M S xx”. I noticed it for the first time this morning checking a route around the house.
A step in the right direction.
Does it include a pause between “Mississippi” and “xx”? The addition of state highway names to TTS was done a couple weeks ago, but a pause managed to sneak in there somehow.
There may have been a very slight one. It wasn’t enough to be disruptive from what I recall.