The Waze map currently classifies hundreds of miles of unpaved/unusable roads as streets in Rio Rancho. I believe this is primarily a result of the way Rio Rancho has been developed. Roads were graded over a much larger area than can be populated in the foreseeable future. In addition, when new areas are developed they often replace the original roads with more modern designs.
I’d like to see what others think about how to classify these roads. Some are reasonably drive-able, but most are essentially jeep trails. I would suggest that any road which cannot be reasonably driven in a subcompact car should be classified as dirt. But if a road is populated with houses, should it be classified as a street, regardless of how well maintained it is?
In most areas this is a minor issue, but in Rio Rancho these roads cover at least 50% of the map, including interconnections between existing neighborhoods. This has potential to create navigation problems as more people begin to use Waze. Please let me know your thoughts.
Here’s an example of what he’s talking about. I had forgotten all of these roads were actually mapped! It’s hard to believe they spent that sort of money on grading all of that.
If they need to be navigated, they should be set as street. Like connectors between neighborhoods. Perhaps the “main drags” could stay street and just set offshoots to 4x4? Perhaps base it off the condition of the roads.
Also, if a road has a house you could classify it as a private road, as I’m pretty sure Waze will route to it if the house is on that segment, but won’t use that segment otherwise.
Do we want to work on getting that entire area cleaned up?
Thanks for this suggestion – great idea. Considering functional classification is important. A lot of NM cities need work in this area.
As irowiki found in his link, these were all created in the 60s by Amrep, a less than reputable company at times as outlined in the link. These were imported into the Waze “basemap” and have been there since. Some of these dirt roads have been improved and maintained over time. Others, as rancegt notes, are 4x4 type roads not easily passable by sedans. Maybe that’s why almost everyone in NM tries to drive an F150! Because many of these roads are used by people for navigation, many of them were left as streets.
Irowiki also points out the NM Wiki page guidance very well. We should consider this. In addition, this area is mostly uninhabited, so we can be more harsh. We want to avoid routing on roads that are not passable. I believe Waze itself will prefer roads that are more heavily traveled in many cases too.
I agree with rancegt’s comment “Perhaps base it off the condition of the roads.” If they are truly 4x4 dirt roads, please always mark them as such. If they are maintained such that a sedan can travel over them easily, then mark them as streets. Pay particular attention near arroyos where the roads may be washed out. If they are really maintained, they will be fixed in a few days. I don’t think any of these are worthy of anything higher than a street (like primary street), but if you find one, consider it.
Special cases may exist where a subdivision is started in the middle of nowhere. You can find these just outside of Rio Rancho. You can use the GPS coordinates view in the editor to see where most people go if there are any Wazers in that community.
I think I spent some time thinking about this all the way west on Southern, when I drove there last year… at some point the road gives out just before the Rio Puerco.
Many of these roads show direction “one way” or “unknown.” Should those be changed to two way? I’m not aware of any significant one way roads in Rio Rancho.
I forgot to mention that if the road doesn’t show up as graded from the satellite view, I suggest we delete it. As the population expands most of the roads without houses will be removed, whether they’ve been graded or not, so I don’t think we lose anything.
This is because of the base map import, the roads were never touched. I’ll start poking at it, it’s a large area! Unless there’s areas outside of your driving area, I can look at those first.
A lot of the roads are outside my driving area but a long trip out on Northern, and another on Southern should bring most of it in. I definitely recognize this area as low priority, but I often encounter this stuff on the edges of subdivisions and populated areas.
The other thing to note is that people really do drive out there. I think it’s almost all recreational/4-wheeling but there’s a model airplane field, a gun club, some power facilities, and even a few houses out there. Having quality navigation data will provide value for some users. I started this thread to learn the best way to handle these things, and to establish some consistency between all the editors for the area. I doubt there’s any place in the country with so many roads and so little population. Eventually an “Unpopulated Areas of Rio Rancho” wiki section should be considered.
Edit:
Places of note that are currently outside my editable area: