This was recently discussed in another thread about similar dirt and gravel roads in NZ. I'm too lazy to look up the link sorry. Anyway the consensus was for the country editors to come together to define and determine how they should mark which roads. In the meantime it was decided that if it's used as a regular road, to mark it as a street. Save the trail designation for the rough roads.

That said, the "Dirt road/4X4 trail" is far to limited in scope. The option of "Unimproved:, or "Dirt" and "Gravel" check boxes would be a great fix. Rather than create several additional road types to make the drop-down list even longer, allow any drive-able and route-able road surface to default to paved, well any but Major Highway and Freeway. Then give us the check boxes to allow us to mark the road as maintained dirt/gravel. And disable the avoid feature for any street so marked.

There is a definite difference between an un-maintained dirt trail, and a maintained dirt or graveled roadway. I'm a big fan of being able to set Waze to avoid dirt roads. In Utah we have had multiple deaths over the last few years when people's GPS devices took them off paved roads and got them lost and stuck in the middle of the desert, because whoever built the map was following really old government maps and marked an old government trail as a passable road. So I like the feature, but We also have miles of well maintained dirt roads, roads that get graded frequently, plowed during the winter and are always very drive-able (even by Corvettes) I still mark them as dirt to be consistent but I get the occasional complaint UR when someone doesn't like that Waze won't take them on their favorite route.

Instigater wrote:We over here in Latvia don't have a lot of good ways. We have rather complex road network and our biggest problem ir road classification. Even some of our primary highways are dirt roads but they are maintained very well. We need a checkbox to describe a road surface as unpaved and maintain our road classification/representation right. Can you help us make our country's wazers happy?

In the meantime, you might (accurately) classify the more difficult dirt roads as "Dirt Roads/4x4 Trails", and configure your client [Settings > Routing > Dirt roads] to "Don't allow".

zCougar wrote:+1 from me too (from Estonia). It is really not an option to use "4x4" for minor highways which a) hides them from outer zoom level and makes navigation harder and b) are used for a small 4x4 or muddy roads (which also exists between fields and in the woods).

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Cougar

If dirt roads are the standard where you are, then it may not be an issue. In places where most roads are paved, people tend to drive cars that can't be driven on dirt roads. So they have an option to disallow dirt roads. In places where most roads are dirt, I assume most people drive 4x4s or trucks (or they just don't drive vehicles like Corvettes that have 3 inches of ground clearance).

Some time ago I was mapping some roads in Slovania and there you also have this problem, but I don't think there will be a solution very soon.
But I also don't think it's a big problem. I don't really think you want not to drive those roads

In Slovenia I just mapped those roads as a highway.

The same case in neigboring Estonia
Many highways are well maintaned gravel roads and you can drive at highway speeds. Some people just don't want to get their car dusty, that's why we need this option. Currently we mark them as highways because dirt roads are hard to see on the client.
But I love them on my KTM. Id rather have waze give me a routing option "as rough and dirty as possible"


Checkbox is a great idea or if you want to get a bit more exact:
Paved
Gravel
Dirt

Drive wise it doesn't make much difference whether you're on a gravel or dirt road. What matters is whether it is a highway or some small road. And this checkbox would be much appreciated!

PS. I think 'Unpaved' is a better word than 'dirt' because it covers both gravel and dirt roads.

+1 from me too (from Estonia). It is really not an option to use "4x4" for minor highways which a) hides them from outer zoom level and makes navigation harder and b) are used for a small 4x4 or muddy roads (which also exists between fields and in the woods).

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Cougar