We’re trying to gather data on what locals in each state call their State Routes/Highways/Roads.
For example in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, they are referred to as “Route ##”. In Louisiana, they are referred to as “Ell Ay ##” (i.e. spoken letters).
Rather wish we were discussing how to bring states that abandoned the SR or State Rte/Hwy syntax back into the fold, rather than have 50 states doing their own two-letter state abbreviation.
Oh, well. Ever the contrarian. One nation, under Waze, divisible, with undisciplined TTS for all.
Well, that’s the two sides to this: should Waze force every state to use the exactly same phrase to refer to state routes or highways? Or should Waze be forced to adopt what the local naming and speaking conventions are?
No difference between Interstate, State Route, etc. If you were to refer to California State Route 91, with anything other than “the” preceding the number, locals will look at you like you were from Mars. (State Route? CA nine-ty one? Oh, you mean The 91 Freeway.)
Also, we’ve got ridiculous nicknames for the freeways, they only recently started removing them from the highway signs, but the local traffic reporters still use them. “The San Gabriel River Freeway is still backed up due to a down motorcycle in the number 3 lane. Those heading north are advised to take the Gardena Freeway east and get on the Santa Ana freeway instead”.
Ah, but you’re missing one of the key uses of GPS. People who are unfamiliar with an area, and most likely not to know local highway naming conventions, rely heavily on GPS to identify proper highways AND local roads. Locals for the most part know what freeways are around them, so even if it’s called something funky, they’ll know. Local streets and exit names are more important to locals, since that’s where they’re going to get lost.
Besides, if you wanted to adopt what most of southern California uses, (which is about 6% of the population of the United States, aka 24 million), you would use “the” and abandon I’s and SR’s and US’s.
And only 5 states have more registered cars than LA county. California (14.2 - not including L.A. County), Texas (8.8 million), New York (8.7 million), Florida (7.2 million), Ohio (6.4 million).
So, the road that runs along the coast from way up north all the way to LA is know as “The 1”?
The other issue is that “State Route” when spoken gets the information across, the text display of “SR-” doesn’t - it’s not something that any navigation system I’ve ever used (and I’ve used many different brands at work) they all use the state abbreviation. Using the state abbreviation is a lot clearer visually & audibly no matter what is spoken.
For example, If I’m driving along in Oklahoma as see this sign and Waze says “Exit Right at Exit 138: Oh-Kay 4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” or “Exit Right at Exit 138: Route 4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” or “Exit Right at Exit 138: Highway 4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” or “Exit Right at Exit 138: Oklahoma 4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” I will still get the idea that that is where I have to exit. If I’m NOT using TTS and it says “Exit Right” and I look at the screen and see “Exit 138: OK-4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” it’s a lot clearer than “Exit Right at Exit 138: State Rte 4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang” or “Exit Right at Exit 138: SR-4 / Mustang Rd / Yukon / Mustang”. What does “SR-” mean? In the first case I even learn something, people call them X in Oklahoma, so if my Phone is dead & I have to stop somewhere and ask directions and a local tells me to go to “Route/Highway/Oh-Kay #” I have an idea what they are talking about.
On info from the spreadsheet, for Alaska & Hawaii are there any numbered roads that do NOT have a name? Do the numbers ever show up on highway exit signs (like in this example from NY for Exit 20: I-684 / SR-22 / White Plains / Pawling?
Not all that long ago (2-years?), Waze had a focus as a commuter GPS. The use of state-level unique naming conventions (TTS mangle-ment not withstanding) had appeal to some. Since then, Waze has evolved into a country-level GPS. (Some may disagree with that, but that’s what I believe.)
If we go down this path of individualizing to local / state-level naming, then we need to consider elimination of country managers. They’ll be among the first to mess things up when editing outside their home state / city because it just won’t be possible for them to know every local colloquialism.
That’s why the idea that’s been floated is to use State Abbreviations and let TTS handle the spoken side of things - the CMs won’t need to know the colloquialism, only which state they are working in (and the Official State Abbreviation)
There are other threads discussing the pros & cons of this concept - I just want to gather the data at this time.
Since many states have already adopted the SR-XX format, please let them opt out. Repeatedly changing the format is annoying.
FWIW, everything is “State Route” in Ohio (even US highways), although people here are intelligent enough to figure out “Turn left on Route 4” if you insist on using that.
“Route” works in Illinois.
In Indiana it’s “State Road”.
In Kansas it’s “K-”. I manually changed almost every State Hwy in the state to this new format last month. Please don’t change it again.
The guidance on changing the State Route naming convention from it’s present form of “State Hwy ##”, “State Rte ##” and “SR-##” is currently “do not change anything yet, we’re trying to get Waze to do something”.
Also, like I said above - this thread is just about getting the data in one place so we have it.
AFAIK, Oahu is the only island with true freeways. They have an “interstate” but instead of I-, it’s H- (e.g. H-3). IIRC, the H- numbering has fewer than 10 numbered highways, and I think fewer than 5.
There are numbered routes, but if you tried to get directions from a local (even one supplanted from the mainland), they’d look at you as though you were speaking a foreign language if you tried to talk in route numbers.
Is this new? If not, then I’m sorry did not realize it when I posted something in the champs forum on the 17th and began a conversation with Amit the following day, also posted in the champs forum. If all of this was supposed to go through you, please forgive me.
Correct (they’re I-H1, I-H2, I-H3, and I-H201). But I recall hearing people calling the interstates by their numbers, and all the other roads by their names.
That’s one of the exceptions to the rule, it usually goes by its “name”. Pacific Coast Highway or PCH. No one calls it State Route 1 or CA-1. I have heard it called “the 1” on occasion, but its pretty rare. However where it goes through some towns it takes on the name of the local street it piggybacks on, and that’s what locals will call it.
Well as the discussion seems to be centering on this thread, it seems to me that we also need to agree on whether all states are going to use the state abbreviations or not. Because if not, then the data on what to name the route/highway/road also needs to be gathered.
