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Post by Riamus
My thoughts for residential driveways:

Map them as private roads when:
  • The driveway is long -- perhaps double what is a typical distance from the road for a house inside city limits? Not sure of actual length, but that sounds about right to me.
  • The house location is very close to another road without access to that road so that correct directions can be provided. This may go away once we are using entirely internal address mapping using the stop points.
  • The driveway supports more than one house.
  • The driveway is named with an official street sign (not a custom sign).
In addition to residential driveways, all actual roads should be mapped regardless of whether or not they are private. If it's a gated community or even just one that has a posted "private road" street sign, it should be mapped. It doesn't matter if it's a private facility, government facility, or housing subdivision. If it is a road (as opposed to just a driveway), map it.

We'll leave parking lot roads for a separate discussion if needed, though I have to say that I *support* mapping drive-thrus and any parking lot with more than a couple GPS tracks in it, even if it's just a single parking lot road in and nothing else. If there aren't any GPS tracks, then it doesn't need anything in it until/unless we decide to mark all commercial lots somewhere down the road. Traffic problems are an obvious concern and driving in the middle of a white space just looks really amateur. We already have that problem with Street types where you can't see the road you're on.
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Post by Riamus
About the only time a dense development would be wrong is if there is a road on the front and back of the property. That's not normally the case. In a dense urban environment, you typically have two rows of houses then a road, followed by two rows of houses, followed by a road. If the house number is all of the way into the other property's boundaries behind you, then that's really a problem that needs to be fixed in the address rather than in mapping. The only other way it would get you on the wrong street is when you're at the intersection. And that's not really a problem because you're still right there. The big problem is when you're in the country, where you might have a half mile to a mile (or more) between roads and it drops you off on another road requiring you to drive quite a long distance to find the actual entrance to the property. Yes, it's an issue, but I wouldn't let that drive mapping practices if the problem is with one address being placed in someone else's yard.

A really short residential driveway should never need to be mapped. There may be some situation where it makes sense to mark it. I'd have to see an example of one before I'd say it was okay, though.

As far as named driveways, it is possible in the US to get your driveway officially named for a fee. It still is a driveway, but it now is a named "road". I think these need to be marked because they are now officially named even if it is only for a single house. That's why I included that in the list.
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Post by Riamus
I agree that 5 meters (about 16 feet) is too low. 10 meters is still fairly low and basically only covers houses inside city limits. At that point, almost any house in the country will be longer than then minimum. That doesn't mean they need to all be marked. I'd say any driveway under 15 meters doesn't need to be marked. I also think that over 50 meters may be too low. My driveway is probably around 75-80 meters and I wouldn't consider it long enough to be marked. I'd say nothing under 15 meters and anything over 100 meters. Anything in the middle depends on the various requirements (multiple houses, etc.). But I'm okay with 5m and 50m if that's the consensus.

Regarding drive-thrus, my opinion is simply that 1) mapping them prevents problems, and 2) you should worry more about fixing problems than worrying about whether or not you think it's too cluttered, and 3) unless auto-zoom is disabled, you aren't going to even see the parking lot roads if you're at about 25-30 mph unless you are navigating and a turn is coming up. If you're in a very slow part of a city, you may see them more often, but you'll also be going so slowly that you still won't see that many on the screen at the same time. If you're going fast enough to matter, then they won't be showing up anyhow. Yes, we want them made less visible. I've suggested using just a centerline for them. But as long as mapping one prevents problems - bad speed data and avoiding map problems - then I think it's a good idea to map them. Just keep pushing hard for changing the display of those roads. For that matter, we already can change color schemes... get Waze to put the width of roads into the configuration as well instead of being hard coded. Then everyone can have what they want for the display.
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Post by Riamus
Alan, I see what you mean about the single row of houses between two roads at the top there. That is fairly common and a situation I hadn't thought of. Once internal addressing is active and working, it won't be a problem. But until then, having a driveway would at least solve the problem in the short term. That being said, do we really want all of those driveways marked? In many cases, a specific driveway may never be routed to in Waze, so adding it would be moot. I'd be okay in that kind of a situation with a person adding their address or someone else's that they go to or whatever, but not to adding every driveway on the street.

As for the bottom one, I don't see the scale, but that looks like it's far enough off the street for a driveway to be acceptable based on the discussion here. Even after internal addresses are enabled, it still would probably make sense to have that just like with other really long driveways.
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Post by Riamus
Why wouldn't internal addressing help? You have a stop point, so Waze should route to the stop point no matter where the address point is located so long as Waze has an address for the house so that external addressing isn't needed.
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Post by Riamus
I think you misread 2a3. It does say to map any driveway that is named. :)

I'm also of the opinion that 2d can be questionable. It may be better to word it as "In general, do not map..." or something like that. For most cases, it probably shouldn't be mapped just to resolve a UR or MP, but there may be valid reasons to map it.

And I agree that 3a should not be done. Not only is it not correct, but it makes the map look bad. I've seen maps where every side street or driveway shown on it had the same name as the road. You couldn't really tell what parts were actually roads and which parts were driveways or which parts may be other roads with or without a name. It just creates a mess.
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Post by Riamus
kentsmith9 wrote:
mapcat wrote:
Riamus wrote:I think you misread 2a3. It does say to map any driveway that is named. :)
Perhaps Kent was saying that if a driveway has a street name, it is a street, not a driveway.
Correct.
Ok. Though I'd still say that it would be a private road, which would be the same mapping as a driveway since we don't have a driveway road type. If someone pays to get their driveway named, it doesn't make it a public street.
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Post by Riamus
kentsmith9 wrote:
mapcat wrote:
Riamus wrote:Ok. Though I'd still say that it would be a private road, which would be the same mapping as a driveway since we don't have a driveway road type. If someone pays to get their driveway named, it doesn't make it a public street.
IMO if it has a name, it is not a driveway, so if it is private, call it a private road, and if it is public, call it a street. Just not a driveway. ;)
I believe mapcat is saying that if a road has a name and is behind a gate or marked as private, it is not a driveway, but merely a private road. If it is named and publicly accessible it is not a driveway, but a street. However, since we don't have a driveway designator, I'm not sure this argument is important because it is either a street or private road.
Right. IF we get a driveway road type, then we can designate it differently whether it is named or not. Until then, as I mentioned, it's still just a private road unless it's meant as a public road. If it was someone's driveway and they paid to get it named, it won't be public, so it would be a private road. No different from an unnamed driveway other than that it has a name on it. The road type would remain the same. If we ever get a driveway road type, then we'll have named driveways marked as private roads (or public if needed) and unnamed driveways marked as driveways. But that isn't the case at this time.
kentsmith9 wrote:I think we all agree there are exceptions to every rule. If the city recognizes the name on a road and other maps recognize the name on the road, then I say we name it. Our point was if someone decided to name their driveway "Joe Rd", that is not a recognized name and we should not map the name.
Just to clarify on this... if the name is official, it should be mapped regardless what the name is. Official meaning there is an official green street sign there (or there could be one officially placed there), or if the city or county has approved the name as official. If someone just sticks a sign at the end of the driveway, then that isn't official. In the US, I believe there is a fee to officially name a driveway. If that has been paid, then we should map it and name it. And the assumption is that it was paid if there is either an official street sign there or the street name is on official city, county, or state maps.
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Post by Riamus
Really? Ok, then... as long as it's an official sign regardless of color. I've only ever seen official street signs that are green, but whatever is official is what I meant; not those signs you can buy at a store. :)
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Post by Riamus
kentsmith9 wrote:I cannot find the thread currently, but Alan and I found a parking lot where the main intersection leading into a big parking lot names the road leading into the parking lot. However that name is not present anywhere else inside the parking lot and no other names exist, so we agreed in that case we should not name that parking lot entrance since coming out of the parking lot a driver would never see that road name from any of the isles leading to the main entrance/exit road.

Also naming all the isles with the name of the parking lot entrance name would not make sense with all roads intersecting each other with the same name. Turn directions would not make sense for that case.

This is clearly different from your example above and we should identify the difference to prevent confusion.
Two things and I'll start with the second item you commented on... Just because the entrance is named doesn't in any way suggest that every parking lot road should be named the same. If only the entrance is named, then only the entrance should be marked with the name. I'm not sure why that would even be considered. I can't think of any reason why all roads in a parking lot would ever be given the same name or why that would be suggested or considered.

And now back to the first item... Was that entrance named at the street? It doesn't really matter if it's named at every intersection. If it's named at least one place, it should be named in the map. For that matter, even if it isn't named on a sign, if it has been given an official name, then it should be named on the map. It doesn't hurt navigation for the map to have the name on it even if the driver won't see a sign pointing to the road. Consider leaving a parking lot that isn't named and the instructions as you head out say to turn right onto Main St. Just because there isn't a Main St sign at the end of the parking lot road doesn't mean the driver is going to be confused. Also, considering that we're talking about parking lots here, you should only be routed into there if that's your destination. And if it's your destination, you aren't really going to care about what the directions say other than to tell you to turn into the lot.

I still say that all roads of any type that have an official name on them should be named in the map without exception. If a road does not have an official name, then it should not be named on the map, though there can be valid exceptions there. For example, an airport may not name the roads leading to the various sections of parking, but it would be of benefit to a driver to hear something like "Turn left onto Section A." That may not be great grammar, but it lets them know they are going into Section A's parking area. I would only name the entrances to the area and not the rest of the parking lot roads in the area, though.
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