Can we please get a standardized ruling on what to use as an abbreviation for Virginia Highways and Routes? I personally like VA-### but I understand that others may prefer SR-### or SH-###. I know nationally SR-### is preferred, but would like a clarification for state usage.
Sources:
https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Road_names/USA https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Highway_naming/USA
According to the Highway_naming/USA page quoted above, our standard is currently State Hwy ###. I would like to see this change to SR-### or VA-### for simplicity. From what I’ve seen State Hwy does not guarantee a shield on the map (which is, I believe, why we picked that in the first place) and the shorter names are a lot easier. Whatever we are gonna do, tho, lets pick one and put it on both the above mentioned pages…then we can get busy standardizing. In Hampton Roads, just over the last few days, I’ve run across every single variation. Would be nice to have set standard.
I personally like VA-### but I have heard that it causes issues with TTS. What is best for the user and TTS
I’m all for publishing standards for routes names in VA as I never remember what the VA standard is. So I am always looking back to the VA wiki for guidance.
There are a couple of issues to consider.
First, the names of freeways (and major highways where limited access) are only used for display purposes (the name on the map and the name in reports) as the navigation instructions are generally taken from the ramps. Ramps names on the other hand don’t show in the map, but are used extensively in navigation instructions. This has resulted in Maryland deciding rather early that “MD-##” should be used in ramp names, but never really clarifying what should be used in the actual road names. For freeways, it has seemed best just to leave it “State Hwy ##” as there hasn’t been any reason to change and maybe the shields will work better.
Second, now that waze is using addresses based on street names we enter for searches we need to not only consider what the road signage is but also what name is used for destinations on the road. So we have Leesburg Pike or Harry Byrd Hwy or whatever the road name is rather than State Hwy 7. Are the many non-freeway roads that should actually have the state route number as the primary name rather than a text name?
Then the question becomes what kind of effort should we putting into to alternate names. I’m currently rather disenchanted with alternate route number names. Waze has yet to make any move to use them for shields. They are rather useless for destination searches at this point because there is all this variation in how a user might type them in. They are causing problems with the routing and routing instructions because they are looked at in those contexts. I hate to remove good data and whatever we do should be consistent, but I wish I felt there was some good reason to have the route numbers accurate in the alternate name field.
TTS should pronounce “VA-2” as “Virginia two,” “SR-2” as “State route two” and “SH-2” as “State highway two.” (In those forms only, i.e. all caps dash number.) I find “Exit right to state route 123, Chain Bridge Rd, McLean” to sound more natural than the others. But I typically call the road Chain Bridge Rd. so not I’m sure what I would say if I only used the number.
So i did some browsing around and found this PDF on VDot from 2003 searching on the VDot site for “State Route 190”
Route Numbering in VA.
It looks like Almost all roads are designated as State Route so we should be using SR-###.
I don’t know if we are allowed to use Wikipedia for reference but i found the info on his page
VA SR < 600 Wiki (Primary Roads)
and here
VA SR > 600 Wiki (Secondary Roads)
While I still like VA better it looks like VDot uses SR and therefore we maybe should be as well.
Also in the Wikipedia pages I noticed that when the roads stay in the state they are SR-### and when they cross borders they are US-###. Just an observation.
For what it’s worth, it appears that SR-xxx is pretty much universally used in Loudoun County…
don’t know if that was a formal rule or just the habit of the editors here.
The Road names/USA wiki claims that State Hwy and State Rte will both show a sign badge. When and if it does work will it show different badge for different name? (i.e. Shield for SH and Circle for SR)? If that’s the case, perhaps we should adopt SH for <600 and SR for 600+ IAW Virginia Major Roads wiki.
The Road names/USA wiki also talks about short version SH-### & SR-### and VA-###, but doesn’t specifically say if they work with the badges or not. I would prefer to standardize on the short versions, but not if it will upset the apple cart.
I haven’t (YET) found any FW or MH (with limited access, i.e. ramps) that weren’t Federal Hwy (i.e. US-13) or Interstate (i.e. I-64). There are, of course, plenty of off-ramps from said FWs to SR, though, and again the naming is all over the place on those ramps.
Agree wholeheartedly that local common name / signage should take precedence as the primary name. That point is raised in the USA naming standards and we should reiterate it in our wiki page, IMHO.
I’m sure they’ll get to it soon. :lol:
All the more reason to pick a standard and stick to it, IMHO. That way if we get UR for bad search, we can tell the user the standard and it should work for this and future searches.
I saw your comments on another thread about how the alt names were messing up BC and/or Big Detours. I got so confused, though, that I didn’t even know what to ask to better my understanding. I’ll go find it again in a little bit and try to understand better, but off-hand I can’t see how standardization of naming structure could hurt even if it doesn’t actually help.
You aren’t thinking like a computer geek! 
Standardization is your friend. Shields from alt names will NEVER be possible if we don’t standardize. Also, there are a lot of things we could do with scripts (Road Selector, Validator localization, etc) WAY more efficiently with standard naming structure. For instance, (Supermedic back me up here) how much easier would it be to code in a check in the localizer for {name or alt name contains “SH-” and roadtype < mH} than to code for {State Hwy or State Rte or SH or SR or…or…or…AND the number is less than 600}? Granted, I plan to fix the road types while fixing the names, but who is to say what might come up next month that we want to code into the validator in a similar manner?
I’m right there with you on this one…exit ramps should say both the local name and the SR-#. I’m not a big fan of State Highway ### in that most of us don’t think of the majority of these as highway #, but more of Route #. I’m ok with SH, though, for route #s < 600 on the off chance that badge signs may someday be a reality + for ease of standardized diff between primary and secondary state roads.
As mentioned with WME Validator, trying to equalize road names (<600 vs >600) with road types (PS vs Street vs mH) is very difficult. It requires breaking down the parts of the name in complex ways.
if (PRIMARY NAME contains SR or SH or VA or State Route or Ste Rte)
then prompt change to SR or VA
if (PRIMARY NAME contains {really complex way of breaking down name to only contiguous numbers} and PRIMARY NAME doesnt contain SR or SH or VA or State Route or Ste Rte)
then prompt change to SR or VA
if ({really complex way of breaking down name to only contiguous numbers} > 600 and ROAD TYPE not {road_type})
then prompt change to {road_type}
if ({really complex way of breaking down name to only contiguous numbers} > 600 and ROAD TYPE not {road_type})
then prompt change to {road_type}
etcIf we moved to a standardized name it can easily be set up WME Validator to highlight all of the roads that dont meet the standard with a single simple statement and after those have been fixed a few simple statements to confirm road types.
Also once things have been standardized or somewhat standardized, any other scripts that need to or want to find/filter/sort by <>600 or SR/VA (whichever we choose) would possible whereas right now its extremely difficult to implement and only works for a small number of segments.
There are places in Suffolk, VA where I have 2 SR and a US as ALT on a single road. We also need to decide upon an order for the alt names, especially if we are going to try to get standardization for shields. Unless it doesn’t matter?
I’ve only seen the oval with the number in it, which I thought was being used for all state route numbers.
I have no objection to standardizing.
I’m not suggesting that the decision be between standardizing route numbers and not standardizing route numbers. Given:
and
It would seem like route numbers will typically only be used as alternate names. (Or in ramp names. There is no reason to use State Hwy ## in a ramp name. Its too long and shields aren’t an issue for ramps.) Since waze has started to use alternate names to determine the best continuation for suppressing turn instructions and to trigger the big detour prevention mechanism, it seems that route numbers as alternate names can cause some problems. So I think the decision is between having route numbers (in a standard form) as alternate names or eliminating route numbers entirely from the alternate name fields. However, I do hate to remove good data.
I’m not optimistic that we’ll be able to see different shields for primary and secondary state roads anytime in the foreseeable future. I don’t see a reason to use a different abbreviation on ramps as opposed to alternate names in other segment types. So, to me the question becomes do you prefer “Exit right to state route 123, Chain Bridge Rd, McLean” or “Exit right to Virginia 123, Chain Bridge Rd, McLean” (as it does seem that no one prefers “Exit right to state highway 123, Chain Bridge Rd, McLean”)? Currently the interchange uses “VA.” However, as you note this is not consistent throughout the state.
I don’t have any indication that it matters. If we do get shields for alternate names, then this would become a national issue.
I would vote for:
>= 600 use SR-XXX
< 600 use VA-XXX
(and US-XX and I-XX)
(and ordered: I, US, VA, SR (then N/S numbers, E/W numbers, then increasing for overlaps))
(I-81, I-64, US-11, US-250, VA-95, VA-42, SR-600, SR-799)
Can we also add that as alt names they NEVER have a city? (since you can’t remove the city name w/o deleting)
What does “then N/S numbers, E/W numbers” mean?
+1 to all the above. Simple, straightforward, satisfies those who like VA and those who like SR, while also separating Primary Routes.
+100 on the “NEVER have a city” in alt name.
I’m just guessing, but typically N/S routes are odd numbers while E/W are even numbers. Presume he meant to put odd numbered routes first (within same category).
I would like to see a preference for continuations used first rather than odd prior to even. For example where 33 merges with 250 the primary route number is US-250.
In your example US-250 would already come before VA-33 by the primary sort put forth of I, US, VA, SR. Also, the ordering is only for multi alt names.
Primary name should already be set to the Primary Route already based on:
On the other hand…if we have a road with Primary Name using local name, such as Portsmouth Blvd, I would agree that the first alt name should be the primary route per the above rules. Following alts would follow the sort order proposed.
I like a shorter abbreviation because screen real estate is precious on a phone, so SH- beats “State Hwy” and TTS says the same thing…
VDOT has made a distinction between state routes over and under 600 by the types of shields they use, so us making a distinction somehow in how we name them is probably appropriate too.
So I’d lean towards something like…
SH-n for < 600 (or the alternative proposal VA-n iff TTS pronounces that as Virginia n)
SR-n for >= 600
I do believe that VA-2 is pronounced as “Virginia two.”
So do we vote or do you decree? 
If we are to split at 600 it seems clear >= is SR-n and below 600 is:
So I think the consensus would be VA for under 600 and SR for 600+
… if we are voting, based on those who have showed up so far.
One issue I have with this proposal is that most of the BGS in VA say SR-XXX. So with the proposed plan, some route guidance will be “exit right to SR-2” then “Turn right on VA-2”. I am not a fan of the mismatch. I have no data to back this up, but I think there are many more streets with State Rte or State Hwy XXX as a primary name than there are secondary routes with State Rte as the primary.
My vote would be for the opposite. Use SR-XXX for 1-599 and then use VA-XXX for secondary routes if everyone else is adamant about using VA-XXX. Then if the street name is signed as SR-XXX we will get the shield and if alt names are ever give a shield we won’t have to wait longer VA-XXX to be added to the list.
edited
I am torn between not wanting two different names but think that a visual way to differentiate between primary and secondary highways could be good.
edit #2 I was confusing ramp names in waze with the wording on the BGSs. Please ignore the first 2 sentences of my post.
I would like to see consistency throughout the state roadways and therefore have all of them as VA-### regardless of number
As much as this was started for consistency and having 2 names isn’t quite consistent…
We don’t have the ALT shield yet but when they do come about it’s much easier to say VA-### is a shield and SR-### is a circle. Instead of VA-### < 600 and 895 and 785 and and and and should be a shield and the rest should be a circle. Updating that would be a nightmare.
Cause stephen put it best…
Edit
We agree on standardization and VA seems to be winning over SR soooo…
POLL:
Split or not to split?
If split, VA or SR for < 600?
If not split VA or SR for all?
And to cast the first stone.
Split <> 600
SR-### < 600, VA-### > 600
SR if we don’t split.