I made sure all the rules were actually correct and in agreement with modern convention. This did involve a few minor changes. Past that, I made the well-agreed-to change that removed the “Exit” from the start of unnumbered exits.
This needs more revision – the rules are a little too wordy for my tastes, and too hard to pick out. I just wanted to get all the rules properly in place before worrying about the readability.
Also, I believe all freeway segments should indicate a direction, whether N, S, E, W, Outer, Inner, or anything else.
In general, changes will also be needed on the abbreviations and acronyms table and the Highway naming/USA table need some updates. For instance, if I’m not mistaken, they use “MD-xx” in Maryland now. Also, since TTS will now say “SH-” for “state highway”, the acceptable formats should be only two- and one-letter abbreviations: “SR-”, “SH-”, two-letter state abbreviations, and a few state-specific one-letter abbreviations. There’s no need for “State Rte” or “State Hwy” anymore.
As for the abbreviations chart, it needs to show only accepted and known-to-work abbreviations. Besides that, I think the abbreviation for “expressway” should be “Expwy” because most signs are like that; also, “BUS” can be used for business routes now.
I thought we were abandoning SH, using only SR for consistency, regardless of TTS. I don’t care either way, I’d personally go with local convention.
For directional suffix, I know I read somewhere that Waze used to need the suffix on split roadways because otherwise there would be some kind of routing problem, but that has been resolved, so no need for it. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a convention that requires it for the benefit of the driver (and editors sticking forks in the spaghetti!).
SH was actually only added recently; we’d been wanting to get it as a TTS abbreviation for a while, and we recently did. We’d held on to “State Hwy” for those states that would otherwise use SH-, but that’s not necessary anymore. But yes, local convention is where we are and where we’re heading; that said, I think there should be restraints on it. So it should be abbreviated, whether in a state-specific or a general form.
I’m actually not familiar with that routing problem, but I was indeed more concerns with driver benefit. For example, it makes report text a lot more helpful.
Well there is the problem that the big detour prevention mechanism will prevent routes from one carriage way to the other if the carriage ways are connected through multiple segments when the different directions don’t have different names. But this is the way it works now.
^ That was me doing a bad job at wiki markup. Fixed.
CBenson: OK, that’s the one routing issue I could think of. I do think it’s worth considering that; you should be able to be told to get off and turn around if you’re going the wrong way for your destination.
I did some modifications on this section. I only removed one thing and replaced it with a link to the Ramp-ramp split section of the JSG/Interchanges page. What does everyone think, should I insert this?
I think we need something in between since sometimes the information that is relevant may be on multiple signs as you approach. Maybe the key target city and highways.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, actually. “On entrance ramps, include both the name/direction and any control cities, even if they are signed on separate signposts.” This is often the case on rural freeway entrances, at least in certain states (some seem to include a BGS everywhere).
This came up yesterday in chat while editing this interchange: https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-94.71710&lat=32.00423&layers=1957&zoom=5. After drawing in the new ramps, checking angles, elevating the overpass, etc… I named the 2 exit ramps “to FM 1798” per the instructions in the wiki. I also checked street view to confirm that it is not a numbered exit from either direction. An editor insisted that I was wrong and that the wiki was wrong, and told me to rename the ramps “Exit: FM 1798”. I referenced the https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Road_names/USA#Exit_ramps_and_entrance_ramps_.28on-ramps.29 page to him twice in chat, and he said the change hadn’t made it into the wiki yet. It was very confusing and wasted a LOT of time. Upon reading this thread, I’m even more confused, and simply trying to learn and do it correctly.
If you can point to an actual wiki page in the main namespace, (meaning the link is Waze.com/wiki/PAGE not waze.com/wiki/User:xxxxx/PAGE) which says a specific rule, then by default you just saw that rule in the wiki. Unless the page has notice saying that it is a draft and not ready for use. Otherwise if it’s in the wiki and you can read it there, then it’s there. You can’t argue over a fact because the answer is right there.
Occasionally that rule may be out there erroneously by an editor without consensus, but as you quoted in your post, this was put there by a champ (sketch) after getting consensus in this thread.
The other thing to consider is whether the state you are editing in j has any special guidance which may override that rule by checking your state wiki. I didn’t not notice any contradictory guidance for Texas with a quick glance.
Right, that change was made following the proper procedure: a thread on that topic in the wiki updates forum (this one), substantial consensus (in this case unanimous), and a significant period of time (a couple weeks).
Looks OK, but we should probably look towards simplifying it a bit and cleaning up language. We can probably explain unsigned/numbered/signed but unnumbered in half the verbiage.
The “in other words stuff” is just awkward – I know you did not put that in, I’m just pointing out things that need fixing.
IIRC, there was a recent discussion about appending the common-usage local name even if it did not appear on BGS, so long as the ramp name did not become excessively long, but I don’t see that present. For example, if SR-1234 is locally known as McManus Road, but the BGS says
[1234]
Goodness City
…then it would be OK to use a name of: SR-1234 / Goodness City / McManus Rd
But…
[1234] N to [1234] S
Goodness City Graciousville
…might be a little too much with the appendage: SR-1234 N / Goodness City / to SR-1234 S / Graciousville / McManus Road
And in any event, if the local name was added, it was to always be appended, never added anywhere else, and if the local name was actually in the BGS, then the order listed on the BGS should be respected.
If I recall, that discussion was earlier in the year when BUS was not pronouncing as “business”, so we updated the wiki to spell it out until the TTS could be corrected. There may be some outstanding issues with BUS E, BUS W, BUS N, and BUS S that could be re-tested, but BUS itself would be a safe change as the TTS has now worked for a few months. I don’t see a reason why the wiki could not be updated at this point assuming the different directions test okay.
I updated the “Signed and numbered” section, keeping in mind your comments. The rest would have to be changed to match still.
The local name would be included in the [street names] section, wouldn’t it? As far as adding explicit verbiage to that effect, I’ll wait for the consensus, as I don’t recall one being reached yet. IMO, if the local name is that important, I’d imagine it would be on the sign.