Update to road classifications in progress

Map Editors Community United States North Carolina
1

There is work being done to update the Wiki for road classifications in the US. I wanted to make everyone in NC aware of this so they can provide any feedback they want during the discussion. It started out as just some clarification on a highway in Michigan that should be a major highway, but based on the Wiki, it would be a minor highway. I know that’s not in NC, but any changes to the USA road classifications will also affect NC. That progressed into a discussion on changing the current standard of “visual” classification to functional classification of roads. In other words, instead of saying a road is a minor highway because it is not limited access or because the speed limit isn’t close to the same speed as freeways, it uses the national functional classification (NFC) to determine how to classify the road.

Feel free to read through the entire discussion or just take a look at the summary below. If you have any comments on it, please include those on the discussion thread as any replies here are unlikely to be seen by anyone not in NC.

Summary

Reason why a change is needed
Within an urban area or in areas that have spent a lot of money on roads, the current system works mostly well. But when you get into rural or poor areas, it falls apart. This started in relation to Michigan. Rural roads account for probably 75-85% of the state’s roads. In the state, all paved roads other than freeways have a speed limit of 55mph except through towns or cities. Dirt roads, which are also very common, have speed limits of usually either 45mph or 55mph depending on the quality of the road. The freeways are typically 70mph. Based on the current Wiki, no highway other than freeways could ever be a major highway based on the speed difference. In addition, the majority of non-freeway roads that are not inside city limits are 1 lane each way with full access. That would also mean that almost no roads could ever be major highways. It does not make sense to make it so that rural or poor areas of the country cannot have major highways on the map. In short, classification should be standard for all areas of the country and not based on money or location. The NFC will allow for that.

Consider that the classification on the map is meant as a way to show the best or more major routes through an area so you don’t end up driving down a ton of minor streets. It really doesn’t matter what the road looks like as long as it’s an important route through the area. The highway that started this was US-31 in northern Michigan. The highway is classified by the NFC as a primary arterial and it is the one and only major route north/south on the western side of the state (it’s combined with US-131 further south). Yet the Wiki would suggest that it’s only a minor highway, just like the state highways that are definitely not major routes north/south in the state. That really doesn’t make sense, so a discussion was started.

The current discussion is that we should be using the NFC to determine the base classifications. In other words, we use the NFC to determine the minimum classification of the roads and then can increase that in Waze if we feel there is a reason. We wouldn’t decrease it without a very good reason, such as the NFC being outdated and some change has occurred to the road that would decrease its classification. Here are the three latest examples of how to classify the roads based on the NFC.

Examples

sketch’s example (page 7 of the discussion):
Freeway = all freeways.
at least Major Highway = all principal arterials; all US routes.
at least Minor Highway = all other arterials; all state highways.
at least Primary Street = all collectors; all county highways.

My suggested change to sketch’s example:
Freeway = all freeways.
at least Major Highway = all principal arterials; all US routes.
at least Minor Highway = all other arterials; all other shielded highways.
at least Primary Street = all collectors.

Reasoning: If it’s shielded, it really should be shown as a highway at the very minimum. This allows for states that have shielded county highways to have them set to Minor Highway as a minimum. If the county considers the roads to be highways, then so should we.

AndyPoms’ changes to sketch’s example:
Note that this is based on his comments and not on a “table” like that above, so it may not be exactly what he has in mind.
Freeway = all freeways.
at least Major Highway = all principal arterials.
at least Minor Highway = all other arterials.
at least Primary Street = all collectors.

Reasoning: Classification should not take into consideration anything other than functional classification. For example, US Highways shouldn’t be automatically set to Major.

Note that AndyPoms’ example would mean a highway like US-158 in North Carolina would be downgraded to Minor Highway because the NFC classifies it as a minor arterial instead of a principal arterial. The other classifications are less likely to downgrade roads. Any of them are likely to upgrade many roads in the state… mainly upgrading Street to Primary Street, though there may be upgrades to Minor Highway or to Major Highway as well.

Anyhow, if you’d like to take part in the discussion so you can provide feedback relating to any highways or roads in your part of the state that you feel should be considered when deciding on how to update the standards in the Wiki, feel free to leave your feedback in the main discussion thread.

2

I am glad this is being address. I had talk to Andy before his presentation and he makes a convincing argument. I know there was some objections to it and some I can kinda of agree with. The reason I post this here is I have a little issue with the following quote.

US-158 would still be a major highway as it is listed as a principal arterial in NC Functional Class Maps.

Edited: BTW, I think NC is at least following sketch’s rules as of right now as this was discussed probably about 2.5 years ago, I just don’t think the changes made it into the wiki.

3

Ah… I only looked at NC-158 near me, where it is listed as a minor arterial. After panning around, I see that it’s a principal arterial in other areas. It’s still a little in question. We aren’t saying that a road can’t have more than one classification. Just not changing it for a “short” distance. NC-158 is minor arterial from Reidsville to almost Walkertown. That is certainly not a “short” distance. I’m not saying it should be made a minor highway through there, but I think based on the conversation that minor highway would still be the default minimum for that section of NC-158 simply because it’s a large enough length at that classification level. But we do say that this is just classifying it as a minimum, so it doesn’t in any way prevent us from making that a major highway for the entire length.

Regarding using sketch’s rules, that may be true in some areas, but not all. There are primary streets in Greensboro that would be upgraded to minor highways based on any of the examples given. There are also many collectors that are not listed as primary streets. I think US and State routes as well as principal arterials may have been being done that way, but not the rest of sketch’s example. At least not everywhere in the state. I’m holding off on making changes to the primary streets that would become minor highways until we get a consensus on the discussion, but then I’ll go ahead and fix those in Greensboro and anywhere else I find them.

4

I am assuming you meant US-158. It does look like it turns into a minor arterial at some point between reidsville and remains that way most of the way west. I would not have an issue with turning it to minor arterial if we are going to follow functional classification to the letter.
[qupote]My suggested change to sketch’s example:
Freeway = all freeways.
at least Major Highway = all principal arterials; all US routes.
at least Minor Highway = all other arterials; all other shielded highways.
at least Primary Street = all collectors.
[/quote]

But you examples of sketch and your suggested changes would still keep it as a major highway because it is a US-route. Not sure if that was typed wrong or I read it wrong. Now Andy’s suggested changes would cause this to be changed over (I am neither for nor against this proposal by Andy as he has made sound arguments in the past about functional class). I think Andy just needs to be able to somehow prove the benefits of making these changes.

.
I see know harm in changing these to minor arterial’s if they are listed as such on the functional class map. I have not gone through the map in Guilford County to see how they are matching up.

I have been updating these using my functional class map resource as I go along working the State Highways as much as possible. The next step after converting the state routes I think is to start getting the roads typed correctly.

After much discussion about 2.5 years ago this was the plan for NC
Freeways-Freeway
Major - US Routes
Minor - US Bus Routes, State Highways
Primary - Important Roads

After talking to Andy before his presentation and finding a good resource for functional class map for the state, I think at the very least sketch’s example should be implemented and have been doing so as I come across roads (not a full scale attack on the conversion just as I have been doing other things). I do not object to Andys changes as well but that is because as of right now I have a good reference to go on.

If the functional class map says it is a minor arterial or whatever classification then by all means fix them. I would rather have someone complain (at least we are given some input) and try to fix their concerns, then not get this updated.

5

Sorry, yes… US-158. I keep mixing state and US up. :confused: And yes, only Andy’s example would change the classification of the highway to minor. The other two would keep it major for the entire length. I also don’t have any strong feelings about whether or not US highways should or shouldn’t be Major by default. It feels right, but I really don’t mind either way. I was just using it as an example to try and get some feedback from people in NC who might have a strong opinion one way or the other.

I do agree that we should be looking at one of the examples or a combination of them and it looks like sketch has put together a Wiki article to build from before bringing the discussion to the Wiki forum. My only concern with his proposal relates to shielded highways that are not state or federal. That may not be a concern in NC, but as this is a proposal for the US as a whole, I think it needs to be considered. It’s my opinion that any shielded road needs to be marked as a minor highway as the minimum level. I’m not talking about numbered roads like how NC has a bunch of State Road XXXX for just about any state-maintained roads, but only about ones that actually have shields either on official maps or on signs on the side of the road. And like I said, I could go either way on the US Highway discussion.

I’ll go ahead and do the updates on the arterials in Greensboro and nearby areas then. It sounds like that’s where we’re going with them anyhow. I just didn’t want to jump the gun, so to speak.

6

I am surprised that osbumlets, AnotherHiggins, or FrisbeeDog hasn’t chimed in yet about this. I think the 5 of us we are all in agreement that this is the way to go in the state. I hate speaking for people but that is my general sense.

7

Well, apparently FrisbeeDog chose to chime in by undoing the edits I made based on the functional classifications and then locking them all at level 5 without any communication. So I guess I won’t bother with fixing the roads in the area. I won’t waste hours of time just to get locked out.

8

Yeah, sorry about the locks. I had not seen this thread and it looked like the changes were completely random. I liked the way we had done things in the past and need to look/understand the reasoning behind the changes.

NC is very unique state in its highway system (most state supported roads in the nation). I don’t really like the idea of moving things up to highways that aren’t actually called US or NC highways. I can see moving some NC highways up to major if that is their use (i.e., multi-lane) and can probably support moving US highways done to minor (2 lane). I think moving primary roads up to major/minor makes the map quite ugly and while it might be archaic, the NC highway system was designed to provide state-supported routes between cities/towns. So once you get out of the major cities, you are going to run into problems.

Is there any reason that affects routing that what we had previously considered a primary road should be classified as a minor or major highway?

9

The plan with the US discussion is to bring a standard classification to all roads within the country regardless what state they are in or if they are in rural or urban areas. As it stands now, classifications are pretty random across the country. I think we need to ignore Waze’s description of the road type and look at it from a functional classification system. In other words, forget that Waze calls something Major Highway and instead think of it as Principal Arterial. Instead of thinking of it as Minor Highway, think of it as Other Arterial. And instead of thinking of it as Primary Street, think of it as Collector. That gets you past the idea that because you don’t consider something a highway, it can’t be marked to follow the classification of arterial. The wording seems to be what people get hung up on.

You said NC is unique, but it really isn’t that different if you look at things from a functional standpoint. For example, just because most roads are state roads with state road numbers doesn’t mean that the roads are going to be classified differently in the NFC. The classification is national, so it’s going to be handled the same as anywhere else. That’s the benefit of using a federal standard. It also makes it so people traveling between states can expect the same classification no matter where they are instead of seeing one state with tons of high classifications and some states with almost everything marked as Street. With the NFC, it should work out that anywhere you are, you should have quick access to a collector (Primary Street), which will take you to an arterial within a decent amount of time. And although the goal is to make Waze not force you onto higher classification roads if there is a faster route on a lower road type, for the time being, this should improve routing in most places as it will provide for additional roads at a somewhat higher classification that can be used for valid routing throughout the area. It’s already benefited me on my route to/from work where a Street was bumped to Primary Street per the NFC that is typically faster than another route and also shorter, but which would never be considered for routing previously. Now it is chosen as the route more than half the time. It’s a better route most of the time because the other route (on minor highways) goes through 2 stop lights and a city. But because it was a matter of Minor Highway or Street, it wasn’t an option according to Waze. Granted that’s one route and classifications within a city going from Primary Street to Minor Highway or Minor to Major highway may not really affect routing. But the idea is to make everything standard across the country in a way that provides a good and cohesive system of naming roads. Editors shouldn’t have to fight over how a road is classified (and end up having everything undone and locked). The current system is set up such that this is exactly what happens. NC doesn’t have a Wiki saying to use any classification other than what is in the Wiki though a few of you have chosen your own system. Other editors wouldn’t have any idea what your system is. And the current Wiki is set up that road classifications are basically set to whatever each individual editor thinks makes sense instead of everyone knowing exactly how to classify the roads.

HavanaDay seems to think that the current US discussion is what the few of you decided on for NC. You say that isn’t true. Can you provide a description of how you think NC’s classification is currently set up? Is it based on something you can quickly look up, or does each editor have to make their own decision based on some guidelines that aren’t necessarily clear similar to the lack of clarity in the current US Wiki? If you think that’s the way it should remain, then I’d recommend discussing it in the US forum as the plan is to unify the country’s classifications based on the NFC.

And although you may think a level 1 editor might mess things up without reason, it really would be better to ask a level 3 before undoing hours of work and then locking them out. There is probably a good reason. At least discuss it before doing that. If you were in my place, I think you would be just as frustrated if you had just put in a lot of work based on the discussions in place only to have it all removed within 24 hours.

10

With regards to current US discussion. I may have misread it but I thought this was the current discussion proposal. I think it was sketch’s proposal.

Freeways - Interstates and no at grade roads
Major - US Hwys
Minor - State Hwys
Primary - Collectors

All roads could be upgraded based on functional class, but that is the minimum standard.

Did I miss something in the other discussion?

This is basically what I have been doing and I thought FrisbeeDog was also doing. The “new” part comes in using the functional class map to identify primary roads and upgrading of roads. With that said though. There are not too many roads that would be “upgraded” that I can think of but I do agree if a road is not a Interstate, US Hwy, State Hwy, but is marked as a major arterial then it should be marked as major.

Does this clear my point of view confusion?

11

You missed arterials that was part of sketch’s proposal and I’m still working to get shielded in there for minor for other states that have county shielded highways so they are covered (that doesn’t affect NC).

The roads I updated that were changed back were arterials (i.e. minor or major highways depending on the type of arterial). I didn’t check everything I had done and some of what I did was in relation to collectors. Not sure if those got changed or not.

12

I am still not understanding, Did you change US Hwy to minor and then it was changed back to major or a state highway to primary and it was changed back to minor, or lastly a primary road that was a arterial road that was changed back to primary from minor or major?

13

An example is a principal arterial that was set as Primary Street. Per the proposal, I updated that to Major Highway. It was changed back to Primary Street. Another was a regular arterial (not principal) that was a Primary Street. I changed it to Minor Highway and it was changed back to Primary Street. Others were similar to that. In no case did I lower the classification and then it got raised again. None were specific to US or state highways and maybe that’s where the confusion lies. Maybe whatever all of you chose to do related only to US and state highways and not specifically to arterials or collectors that are not US or state highways?

14

Do you have the road in question. I do agree with you if it is a minor arterial that is not a state highway it should be a minor highway designation. Same thing goes for Major arterial. I have not to my knowledge come across one. I do know when I was first starting to work on classifying the roads if a road was at least a collector it got to be a primary road. At the very beginning I am not to sure I paid a huge amount of attention as to whether it was collector or arterial as how to classifying these roads was still up in the air. If my name was attached to the segment that is probably what would have happened.

15

Sure. Per the NFC, this road and this road are both minor arterials. Note that I’m just selecting a single segment per street just to show which ones.

As a side note, this part of Market St is a principal arterial (major highway per the proposal).

And everything is still locked at 5. I’ll just let someone else fix them up since I’m blocked. I have enough other areas needing work.

16

Ok, does anyone have any problems with marking all collectors as Primary Streets if they are currently marked as Streets? I’m not suggesting lowering anything, but only marking them as Primary Streets if they aren’t already at least that. If I can get agreement on that much, it at least helps to get some things going. If you guys disagree on arterials being highways, then we can continue discussing that, but I think collectors should all be at least Primary Streets and I’d like to try and get agreement on that much in NC. I don’t want to do work any lose it all again.

17

Could I get an example of what you are calling a collector? I’m in a rather rural area so off hand I’m not thinking it will affect my area. My first thought on what you mean by a collector are those parallel roads off of freeways that contain several on/off ramps to one pair of on/off for the group. This US-64 and I-95 junction is what I’m thinking of.

18

See the NFC for what is a collector. What you describe are not collectors. I’m not sure what the official name is, but I just think of them as pass-through ramps. Here is the Wikipedia explanation of what a collector is. But in short, it’s a road that is meant to “collect” traffic and route them toward more major roads. Just keep in mind that the Wikipedia article may not be entirely accurate with the current NFC guidelines as those have changed when they dropped the division of urban versus rural. But it will at least give you an idea of what they are and their general purpose. Also keep in mind that although that article talks about physical appearance, the physical appearance generally does not matter in classification as it can vary greatly depending on where you live. That’s why we want to move away from using physical characteristics and toward functional classification that is standardized. It cuts down on the amount of confusion or disagreement over how to classify a road. Physical characteristics tend to lead to opinions rather than basing it on what the DOT would care about - traffic flow/volume and the purpose of the road. If the purpose of the road is to handle large amounts of traffic, then it doesn’t really matter if it looks like a side street.

19

OK, I think I understand now. I will say that NFC map is VERY out of date. And I can’t agree with some of the classing of the roads. In my town (Havelock, NC) they have US-70 downgraded from “Other Principal Arterial” to “Major Collector” at the South edge of town. Over half of that is 55 MPH with no side streets. I also think that McCotter Blvd, longest road between US-70 and Hwy-101 in Havelock, should be a Major Collector.

Based on that I’m seeing though I could see setting Major Collectors to Primary Roads. Right, I see no Minor Collectors shown on the roads I’m most familiar with, but at this time would hesitate to include Minor Collectors as Primary Roads. Looking at Havelock and knowing the roads here I think that Webb Blvd and Belltown Rd are a couple of streets I would consider Minor Collectors (even though not marked as such on NFC) and not sure I would call them Primary Roads.
I

20

I don’t think it’s really out of date. It seems to be pretty accurate with regards to many of the newer construction projects. I haven’t looked to see what the date is on it, though. Also keep in mind that except when roads change in an area, the classifications are pretty much going to remain the same. There are construction projects on a regular basis, but probably more than 98% of classifications wouldn’t change within even a 5-10 year period… or more. So as long as the NFC is using the current standards since there was a recent change to how the NFC is structured, then it is actually good for most roads. And there is always consideration for roads that simply don’t make sense to be classified as they are or where a road change in the area would change the classification of the road. For example, a major collector that is permanently closed off on one end would most likely cease to be a major collector or at least the route of the major collector would shift to another path that gets you through the area. From examining the classifications, they appear to be mostly what I would expect. There may be a few exceptions, but I am not a DOT employee or someone who knows how they want the roads to be used. Even if we don’t consider a road to be a collector, that may be how it’s supposed to work and having traffic use that over another side street is valid. Also keep in mind that there will often be times when multiple roads are equally as good to get through an area. In most cases, not all of those will have a higher classification even if they are basically the same kind of road. That doesn’t negate the classification in any way.

As far as US highways, there is strong belief that they should all be marked as Major Highway or Freeway no matter what the NFC says. There’s also those who think they should just follow the NFC entirely. I’m okay either way, though I do think that it makes sense to have US highways all set to Major Highway or Freeway in the same way that I think state highways should all be set to at least Minor Highway. I just can’t see having a state highway set to a Primary Street or a Street regardless of the functional classification. But as I said, I can go either way on that. As far as why it’s downgraded on the NFC, consider the difference between arterial and collector. A collector brings traffic to arterials. Arterials are used as the major traffic routes across an area. I don’t know the area you mention, but my guess is that the downgraded area really isn’t a major route anymore. It may be that continuing down that highway just takes you out to rural areas without any main destinations. Again, I don’t know the area and I didn’t look it up on the map, but that is an example of why it may be downgraded. I don’t always agree entirely with every classification, but I do strongly believe that the classifications are valid even if I don’t necessarily understand why they are the way they are. I’m certain if we really wanted to find out, we could do some research and get an answer that makes sense.

As far as Minor Collectors, if they aren’t set to Minor Collectors in the NFC, then it makes sense that you also wouldn’t consider them to be Primary Streets. If the NFC doesn’t consider them that way, then we probably wouldn’t either. You’d need to look at minor collectors in the NFC and consider those ones instead of ones you personally think should be minor collectors. That’s the only way to really know if they make sense. That being said, in a LOT of cases, you’ll have a combination of major and minor collectors through an area and if we only classified the major collectors and Primary Streets, we’d end up with a lot of Primary Streets that are just stubs apparently in the middle of nowhere. Once you add in the minor collectors, then it starts to fill out and makes sense. Waze doesn’t have enough classifications to match the NFC, so we have to do some combining for it to work. I really do think that all collectors should be Primary Streets (or higher if warranted) since we don’t have a break down there. Then normal arterials can be Minor Highways and principal arterials can be Major Highways and Freeways and of course Freeways. Anything else is a Street or something like a Private Road or Dirt Road or Parking Lot Road or whatever. I’ve seen this work very well both in NC and in the area I manage in northern Michigan.

You should also see a good breakdown of roads in an area. These are just random numbers thrown out there to use as an example, but most areas should have a regular breakdown of every road type. Perhaps something like 60% Street, 25% Primary Street, 9% Minor Highway, 4% Major Highway, and 2% Freeway. Again, those are not meant to be real numbers, but are just an idea of what you might see. Not every area will necessarily have the exact same breakdown, but you really should see a similar breakdown no matter where you are in the country. The DOT in each state wants traffic flow to work well and it works best by having a basic structure of minor streets, collectors, arterials, and freeways with a similar pyramidal breakdown of those. However, there are currently areas in NC where you do not have anything at all like that. Take a look at Greensboro and you’ll see no Minor Highways except one state highway. I believe that to be incorrect, but I was locked out of the changes I made to match the NFC and that I feel are valid changes. So that’s why I’m asking specifically to see if the Champs here can at least agree on collectors so I can do some work in NC. I’m not going to waste hours of my time again just to have every change removed and to be locked out of those streets again (they’ve been locked for over a month even after reasons were given and my messages are apparently not being read anymore). But if no one will give the go ahead on collectors, I’ll just avoid fixing the roads in NC and spend my time in the area I manage where I have support for getting the roads cleaned up.