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[Update] Road names/USA - State highway naming

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https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Road_names/U ... e_highways

The road names page could certainly use more substantial updates than just this, but this section seems particularly outdated at this point. We now have both "SR-" and "SH-" abbreviations supported by TTS, and (imperfect) support for state two-letter abbreviations as well.

I propose we remove the "long names" guidance and suggest that only "SR-", "SH-", or state-specific abbreviations (e.g., "LA-", "M-") are acceptable. This would also require an update of the linked "Road naming by state" article/table.

I do not believe that shield generation is a valid reason to keep the old (long) names. Rather, changing the name format should be an impetus to finally get our act together and send staff a request for new shield matching parameters.

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Post by CBenson
I'm not so sure I agree that shield generation is not a valid reason to keep the old names, at least for freeways. What is the benefit to using MD-32 or SH-32 rather than State Hwy 32 for a freeway name?
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Post by CBenson
I thought we had agreed that the short forms alone should be used in ramp names before there was TTS. I'm all for setting a standard. If we have to break whats working to get shields to comply with a reasoned state naming scheme, I could live with that.
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Post by kentsmith9
PhantomSoul wrote:I would strongly recommend considering state-abbreviation-based state road names, even in states where phrases like "state route" or "SR-" are common. I realize in a state like New Jersey - where all our numbered roads, including interstates, are simply referred to as routes (we're small enough that there's no overlap among the federal, state, or county levels) - that uses a plain white circle on a black field for its state routes, it doesn't really matter, but if we have a unique "code" for each state's roads, we facilitate support for custom state shields for all states, even if the actual graphics don't get implemented until a later time.
Not sure I follow completely, so let me restate to clarify just in case. In CA we have hundreds of numbered roads: My understanding is none of these roadways in use today mix the number between the two lists (County roads require the initial letter code like "J49" or "B12"). However each road name has a different shield. Are you proposing that in the mean time the State Routes and County Routes just use a circle with a number until or unless we can get state specific graphics?

I can support that.
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Post by kentsmith9
sketch wrote:Not sure exactly what you're saying, but I think I understand. Although I'm not sure what you mean about numbers being used or road names having different shields? The particular shield used is based on the abbreviation, not the number. (Some states do have the same route number on multiple highway systems – for example, I-10 and LA-10.)
My comment here was that California has unique numbers for all roadways in the state including County roads (because they added a letter in front of the numbers.)

Therefore if we have SR-84 for the State Route 84, we can have SR-J84 for County Road J84. Or if all states have county roads/routes, why not use CR? In Northern California I personally never shortened any county road names (not highly traveled so did not bother). Here I don't care which way we go, but I just want to be consistent if possible.
sketch wrote:Interstate, US highway, and county route shields would remain the same for all states. All states, of course, use the same Interstate and US highway shields; most states use a common county route shield.
I did not realize the County Route shields were the same among most states until today. Cool. Then we only have the state shields to manage eventually.
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Post by kentsmith9
sketch wrote:Did someone suggest using SR- for county routes? I don't know why we'd do that. CR- should be used for county routes.
CR = County Route = Very Good. I may have misunderstood a prior post if no one claims All routes are SR.
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Post by kentsmith9
qwaletee wrote:I don't know how you find the time to read that many threads.
sketch wrote:To be honest, I don't know either! :D
I gave up and depend on everyone else now. Thanks Sketch. :mrgreen:
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Post by PhantomSoul
I would strongly recommend considering state-abbreviation-based state road names, even in states where phrases like "state route" or "SR-" are common. I realize in a state like New Jersey - where all our numbered roads, including interstates, are simply referred to as routes (we're small enough that there's no overlap among the federal, state, or county levels) - that uses a plain white circle on a black field for its state routes, it doesn't really matter, but if we have a unique "code" for each state's roads, we facilitate support for custom state shields for all states, even if the actual graphics don't get implemented until a later time.

Just my $0.02.
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Post by PhantomSoul
qwaletee wrote:It really shouldn't be necessary to have to use the state-specific abbreviation instead of SH-/SR- to get unique shields. The state name is an attribute of every segment, so we can easily have Waze generate a different shield for Ny and for NJ, for example, even though both use SR-

In fact, I wouldn't want it the other way around. If somehow a road in Texas is named LA-99, I don't want a Louisiana state shield on it, because something is wrong there.
Technically, you're right. But in reality, especially in the interest of conserving computing resources, such a lookup might be too costly, and we might be limited to trying to determine a shield graphic from just the characters contained within the road name itself. In fact, everytime I see this brought up, I get more and more convinced that making the actual meaning of SR- or SH-, in terms of what graphic to use, dependent on another value, such as selected state, is more complex than Waze is willing to work with, for whatever reason.
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Post by qwaletee
It really shouldn't be necessary to have to use the state-specific abbreviation instead of SH-/SR- to get unique shields. The state name is an attribute of every segment, so we can easily have Waze generate a different shield for Ny and for NJ, for example, even though both use SR-

In fact, I wouldn't want it the other way around. If somehow a road in Texas is named LA-99, I don't want a Louisiana state shield on it, because something is wrong there.
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Post by qwaletee
I hear what you are saying, but why not put in an ask? It might actually be easier for them to code instead of having to do a textual lookup or run an expensive series of regexp. (Which also answers PhantomSoul.) One expression to check for "is a highway," then a non-text lookup to determine which shield. That's how I would code it :)
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