I was going to revisit US Forest Service roads now, after catching up on a few things. This topic was brought up at the 2013 Meetup, where Ehud indicated he wanted detail there.
There are a lot of roads in NM like this and many more across the US. I know some people in the USFS in DC and am planning to ask for standards and detail. Has anyone else acquired such information, or asked?
Um, many of these roads are not maintained when it snows, since many are dirt or gravel roads. In such cases, their use can be downright dangerous. Is Waze equipped to handle that if we use such roads for navigation?
If we don’t want to navigate through forest service roads, it seems they should just be of type private road then, no?
Dirt / 4x4 type could be used… That should allow people to specify if they want to be on there…
I imagine exactly how to represent them consistently would be a topic of conversation here. My initial interest is getting the data and naming conventions from a good source at USFS.
In my experience, many of theses roads on the map are of type street. Few are dirt roads. Some are actually paved, many very well maintained dirt roads to the point they are essentially streets to locals, and some not well maintained. I would hope to get that kind of data, but wonder if someone here already obtained it.
I’m with Phantomsoul on this. Ehud isn’t native to the US, I don’t think he realizes how widely the quality of these often so called roads varies. Some are highly maintained during the warm months, and some even get maintained as snowmobile trails during the winter. Some might get a pass over with a grader every couple years and some are barely even mtn goat trails.
Further, out here in the West/Southwest/Mountainwest there is a long history of people getting into trouble because they followed a route their GPS gave them. (Once or twice a year) These events have resulted in deaths. As such I strongly disagree with mapping these roads. Additionally in many areas where we find these roads there is NO cell signal (let alone data) for MILES and thus the usability of Waze greatly diminishes. Let’s stick to getting the actual road system mapped and working correctly, and get a working unimproved road option built into the mapping system before we even begin thinking about mapping these roads.
“4X4/Dirt” covers too wide a range of roads, trails, deer trails and hints of paths, to be trying to map these roads.
I don’t delete such roads that actually have official FS names from the basemap, but quite often I delete unnamed roads going through the wilderness.
I don’t mind mapping forest roads, but I think it could be dangerous routing people on them if they don’t understand what kind of roads they are. As far as naming conventions, they’re usually along the lines of “FS” followed by some number, but maybe some of the better developed ones that actually connect settlements might also have local “word” names.
The “street” type is probably from the base data import, since it seems like anything that wasn’t some sort of highway or another was funneled into being type “street”
I get it about wanting to come up with a standard, and it will be interesting to see what develops. I just wanted to point out that many of these roads, particularly out west, can be dangerous for the typical kind of navigation that Waze appears to be targeting.
I have done several things.
So we can set a standard for FS roads and Maps that we could utilize that would be great! I do know that the base map has a lot of old FS roads that have been decommissioned so we can then delete the appropriate ones and keep the ones that are usable (even if they are 4x4)
Note: In my teen years, I had a route to a friends place that I knew of two possible routes, one route takes the main roads or the other route was FS roads (paved) and the FS road was the faster route!
I mapped or corrected a number of trails, marking them 4x4/Dirt. Some of them only a modified Jeep could pass. I would bet a large number of them dont even have cell or data service, but the real reason I made them correct is for the possibility of getting someone OUT, not into the area. Some of the un-named ones I renamed to “South to Hwy” or “West to the Powerlines” etc.
At this point in technology, we have waze as it is, and cell/data service as it is. What if in 3 years satalitte cell/data is commonplace and cheap? Waze would be way ahead of the game if all the offroad and deep mountain paths were mapped where signals could reach with future tech.
As a result of the US Meetup, the “Dirt Road/4x4 Trail” is officially only for roads that a normal car (i.e. the family sedan) can drive on. The type will be renamed “Unpaved Road” in the near future. There was also talk of adding a “4x4” or “Off-Road” type.
Of course, there was a later discussing in the forums to make “Unpaved” a checkbox instead (and using the other road types) and renaming the exisintg type to be simply “4x4/Offroad”.
HOWEVER, both plans consisted of taking the existing “Dirt Road/4x4 Trail” and making them the type that a sedan could drive on and ADDING support for things like a “modified Jeep”.
This reminds me, there are bunch of things that weren’t followed up on from the meetup… Off to make another post…
Thanks for the replies and great input. I think I understand everyone’s points, and am really not biased toward a particular solution/approach at this point. I do think we should map the roads that are paved and well maintained as at least streets. After that I think this community can come up with the right approach.
I used to travel a lot of USFS roads in northern Wisconsin as a under-age driver (which you can do easily in a place with a population density of one person per 100 square miles or so) to explore, hunt, and have fun. The condition of the roads is definitely seasonal for some roads. On the other hand, some roads are so important that they are maintained well year-round.
I’ve made contact with the USFS and should be able to talk to a couple of their road engineers soon. I have a good friend that has been a tanker base manager in a number of regions in the SW and is in DC now that is helping. Hopefully I can get resources and advice from them and will post here. There are a lot online resources I’ve already cataloged.
My first focus is on standard naming conventions and a source of data on the status of roads that we might use for reference. If anyone has questions I should ask, post here or send me a PM.
Don’t we all just love these “Official Meet-up” decisions that are announced one way and then different attendees report differently. As per the recap thread Alan said that it was only lightly touched on and he reported that the idea was to rename the 4x4 road type to just dirt or unpaved and thus use it for commuter car quality roads. From the recap thread:
Also from the recap thread:
Then later (mostly in regards to landmarks) It was advised that until any decided/recommended changes are made the status quo is the rule. Thus to say the official decision seems exaggeration and counter the the decisions made regarding other issues. i.e. status quo until the editor/client changes are made.
So to say it is officially decided seems a bit excessive as what was previously reported was that the road type would be renamed and then designated for such use. But until it is renamed, saying it’s the rule seems to be jumping the gun. But then you were there, I couldn’t make it on the weekend they chose for the meet-up so I’m only going second hand based on what was previously stated.
We don’t know how Waze will implement this. There’s also the problem that we just can’t mass-covert segments because some are really offroad trails, and some are simply unpaved.
The suggestion we gave to Waze was to create an “Unpaved” checkbox and we can convert the gravel roads, and other non-offroad segments over. They would also just simply rename the “Dirt/4x4” to be “4x4/Offroad” and we’d move on with life. Therefore, if it is a 4x4 or other off-road trail that a normal car would not drive, then set it as Dirt/4x4 and it will just get the new name later. If it is a gravel or other street drivable by a normal car (though many of us avoid them), then do not set it to “Dirt/4x4” but just leave it as street or highway or whatever the road type may be.
Does that clarify things or make it worse? I admit I didn’t read a whole lot of the more recent posts, so if I’ve totally gone off the road, I can just delete my post.
Alan: given the feature to avoid dirt (or long dirt) roads, it would be foolhardy to not be marking these roads right now.
I agree it’s not optimal, but it is better than waiting for some potential feature implementation.
Had lunch with one USFS staff from DC yesterday and I’ve been introduced to a GIS staff at USFS in ABQ. Also invited to the ABQ AIr Tanker base on Kirtland AFB tomorrow as he might be there. Lots of activity now because they are currently fighting a small fire in the Sandia Mountains east of ABQ. Saw the smoke this morning.
Thanks Alan I find your suggestion the most reasonable and viable simply due to the mass quantity of truly 4X4 only roads that are out there already designated as such. And to simply declare that label to mean a viable unimproved surface street can lead to getting people in serious and possibly life threatening trouble, and that is the last thing Waze wants to do.
Daknife: that “serious and life threatening trouble” is exactly why any gravel / dirt surface needs that designation for now.
We have plenty of forest service roads, as well as “township” and “range” roads that are gravel and impassible during certain times of the year. The worst part about the latter two types is that they aren’t known as that simply by name. Some range/township roads are better maintained than some highways…
My vote is that until Waze makes a new designation, any road that is unpaved needs to be marked as 4x4/Dirt.
DoctorKb, I think you are missing the point I was making. The point is that Andy claimed that anything passable by a Sedan was to be worthy of the Dirt-4X4 designation. My point is that simply setting any road that is merely unimproved, regardless of how passable it is to dirt and then telling users that the dirt/4X4 road type is just an unimproved but useable road is a bad idea. If the road is highly maintained and passable by any vehicle it should be designated a street (for now) even if the surface is gravel or even dirt. Save the Dirt/4X4 designation (for now) for those that are of questionable quality, at times they may be in great condition having been just recently graded, but if the care is limited and intermittent, at best they can not be considered reliably passable by every vehicle at all times. Further because this category already includes untold miles and miles of true 4x4 trail quality roads that should never be attempted with a sedan; and even many (though I delete those I recognize as such) that shouldn’t be attempted without a dedicated rock crawler, as they imported with the basemap, we cannot in good faith use the Dirt road/4X4 Trail road type and announce to the users of Waze that it is a high quality road that is merely of an unimproved surface.
Now should Waze create a new road type (Unimproved Street would be my recommendation if they go this route), or better yet in my opinion give us the unimproved checkbox option useable on any road type (okay maybe not freeway), then such a road should be widely implemented anywhere you have good quality roads that are simply not paved. To declare an existing road type with extensive networks of very rough roads and trails already on the map as highly passable is asking to get someone in serious trouble. As does happen every now and then out here in the west, both in winter time and in summer. With GPS devices taking drivers through snowed in passes in the winter or onto desert traces in summer. People have died from such false advice, we do not want Waze to be giving such advice if at all possible.
To mark “Any unpaved road as Dirt/4X4” denies users (trying to avoid unpassable roads) many viable routes and indeed even all access to some areas (well not really because once they are on those roads Waze will route them) where the roads are unpaved but are very well maintained and with the exception of after severe rains or during the spring melt are viable routes. And a gravel route is more reliably navigable than a dirt, yet you grouped it in with the dirt roads.
Previously in one of the many threads on the topic someone said that using the avoid dirt roads options may be popular with those who don’t want to get their car dirty. That reasoning is not one I concern my thoughts with, I don’t care if my vehicle gets dirty and I don’t really care if a user’s car gets dirty, I just want a safe route that is quick and as short as possible while remaining safe. (Not that I worry too much as I do in fact drive a 4X4 vehicle capable of handling most the so designated segments.) If a local editor knows that a said road is always passable regardless of the surface material then let him mark it a street for the time being. But even if we follow your thought process and keep unimproved marked as dirt and only paved marked as streets, that is far preferable to what Andy claimed was the new standard.
p.s. sorry for getting so verbose.
I agree with daknife. This may be a rural / Wild West issue where those not living in such areas have little concept of how critical dirt roads are to daily travel.
Just to be clear on my last post, this vote would render impassable on Waze (as I understand it) many rural and western areas. We don’t want that to happen.
Yah, that’s essentially what I do now. If a road is commonly used as a street by people in general, I call it a street regardless of pavement. If the mudholes are bad enough that it’s likely that an out-of-towner won’t want to take it, I call it dirt/4x4.