For reasons in my first post in this thread, I think they should be all PS, and then selectively tweaked using the routing "favored" option, not by setting to mH. However, it appears a decision was made a couple years ago about secondaries being mH, but that was before the "favored" and "unfavored" routing tweaking options were available. The Lequs discussion was in early 2015; the routing tweaking options came out in late 2015...I'm reasonably sure.

It was because I discovered inconsistencies with how FC was being applied to State Hwys that I opened this thread, wondering if there was an undocumented decision already made. FC is meant to eliminate inconsistency, and with the routing tweaks, it works uniformly. The state wiki lacks clarity on this. But POMT found an old discussion where apparently a decision was made. With the introduction of the routing tweaking in late 2015, I am dubious it's still the best decision, but it's a decision, none-the-less. That's what I was looking for.

So numbered state highways will be mH by default, which I believe means any other collector would be PS. I’ll continue on that basis. If enough MT editors (all 4 or 5? ) think changing that decision is worth another look, then that is a separate issue.

State Hwys as minor arterials (mH) will result in some weird WME visuals like here http://arcg.is/0KqiHi in Sanders County where there will be two mHs nearly parallel (MT-200 and State Hwy 472) where the geometry of MT-200 is clearly the more expeditious route, but hopefully that’s an aberration, not the norm. From a routing perspective it will be OK because of speed data, but setting State Hwy 472 to "Unfavored" should be considered.

SkyviewGuru, here's the FHA information. The total Collector mileage is typically one-third of the Local roadway network. Typically, there will be fewer mH miles than Collector miles, fewer MH miles than mH, and fewer Freeway miles than MH. Tables 3-5 and 3-6 discuss percentages. This is a good study for every editor.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/proce ... tion03.cfm. Thanks to Sketch for finding this for me.

The routing tweaks are available at R4, I'm told, but point taken: There's not yet sufficient R4 editors.

So, how about this as a way to uniformly translate collectors (minor and major) to PS or mH? Truth be told, it's really no different than the national FC matrix, but does add clarity to correctly selecting the Waze road type for a major collector or minor arterial in Montana and I think it is pretty solid without any routing tweaks which should be trusted to local editors.

Using MT DOT's FC as reference (rural FC, not urban FC):

- An unnumbered road DOT FC'd as a minor collector = Waze Road Type: Primary Street
-- Example 1: Pleasant Valley Rd west of Kalispell -- http://arcg.is/8Kuyf
-- Example 2: Chevallier Dr between I-15 (Exit 216) and Lincoln Rd -- http://arcg.is/19frii

- An unumbered road DOT FC'd as a major collector = Waze Road Type: Primary Street
-- Example 1: Ashley Lake Rd west of Kalispell -- http://arcg.is/0nvCH4
-- Example 2: Recreation Road paralleling I-15 either side of Wolf Creek -- http://arcg.is/10uy5q

- A numbered road DOT FC'd as a minor collector = Waze Road Type: Primary Street
-- Example 1: None found, but included here for completeness

- A numbered road DOT FC'd as a major collector = Waze Road Type: Minor Highway
-- Example 1: Hwy 279 between MT-200 and Helena -- http://arcg.is/10KX4e
-- Example 2: Hwy 472 (Blue Slide Rd) between Trout Creek and Thompson Falls -- http://arcg.is/0KqiHi

(Go fast? No guardrail? I'm there!) Putting it all together, http://arcg.is/a5jnD would look like https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lo ... 303&zoom=4 in Waze. Does this make sense to most of you?

Note that I'm not including Nat'l Forest Development Roads as "numbered" roads; I'm just including numbered highways.

Now having edited from Idaho to the Dakotas, and the Canadian border to Wyoming, over the past several months, I am convinced the correct course of action was as previously discussed: Numbered secondary highways should be at least Minor Hwy (mH). If local BOTG editors believe routing needs to be tailored as PS on some, then the unfavored routing option could be used. I initially thought secondary highways should be PS, but over the course of the discussion and extensive editing, reached the conclusion that mH as the minimum standard is the best choice.

Paved or unpaved makes no difference when setting FC. There’s a separate checkbox for that which will impact routing based on the user’s dirt road setting. (Setting the Dirt road option to Don’t Allow or Avoid Long Ones in Montana seems problematic in a state where dirt roads are so prevalent.)

Lastly, I would not encourage a decision to change secondary highways from mH to PS be based on the mH L3 lock-level being too high. If raising mH to L3 was the right the decision in the first place, then don’t second guess without significant evidence it was the wrong technical decision, even if administratively it makes it tougher for L1 and L2 editors.

The genesis for this thread was to seek PS vs. mH clarity on secondary highways as I started a project to apply Waze's hybrid functional classification standards to Montana. That project is complete, although I am still looking for anything I may have missed.

What about setting the Secondary highways as PS, and then selectively upgrading segments that need it?

The secondary highways in Herrchin's example could be bumped to mH.

Just a thought.

As herrchin mentioned, pruning is a major consideration due to the state's size especially relative to its population. I've dealt with a number of issues in rural central and eastern Oregon where Waze would avoid a direct route because the road type wasn't high enough. Of course, this can be overcome with routing preference settings so you could, for example, have secondaries set as mH but drop to PS routing when they're unpaved.

I did a pan around in ArcGIS, and downgrading them to PS initially gives me a few potential concerns:

1. Pruning. Montana is big. At least twice mH have needed to be upgraded to MH to correct longer-distance routing (MT-59 near the Wyoming border is one example). I don't know the internal details on when PS is used for route consideration, but I see some Secondary highways FC'd as major collectors that are the best route. Example, Secondary highway 271 is a useful link between Primary highway 200 and I-90. Lincoln to Drummond is a 52 minute drive, but if you get pruned to sticking on mH, using Primary highway 141 is an 80 minute drive.
2. Lack of local differentiation vs. county-maintained collectors, where both would be PS in Waze (under the proposal), but the state highway is a superior route. Secondary highways 379 and 365 are good roads to head east on when on I-15 north of Black Eagle, but if downgraded to PS would be equivalent to 24th Rd NE (the PS sandwiched between those 2 highways). It's possible that speed data would handle this situation. 24th Rd is unpaved, but rural Montana commuters aren't likely to enable avoidance of Unpaved.

The principal of "if it ain't broke..." may apply here. If mH secondary highways aren't causing issues, but downgrading to PS may create issues that then require exceptions to correct, that's not a great tradeoff. As far as road type ratios go, Montana is pretty sparse; I don't think we have to worry about the Manhattan problem?

The State of Montana choosing to retain responsibility for maintenance of the roadways in question (vs. relinquishing them to counties) should be an indication of some level of increased importance to travel, relative to other county major collectors?

banished wrote:For reasons in my first post in this thread, I think they should be all PS, and then selectively tweaked using the routing "favored" option, not by setting to mH.

Doesn't this functionally lock the segment to L5 editors? (last I knew it did) For "finished" areas, that wouldn't be a huge concern, but in areas with few editors, things tend to be completed in multiple passes over long periods of time. FC, then Speed Limits, paved/unpaved, turn confirmations and basemap cleanup, etc.

To clarify my position, I'm in no way opposed to testing PS even without setting Favored. All our tests would probably need to be synthetic though; I don't think we can count on Wazer URs to confirm any results

I reviewed the 2013 MDT Roadlog, and there were zero noted miles of state numbered minor collectors, and only 0.743 miles of state-maintained urban system minor collector (Casino Creek Dr, here).

In the following sheet, it shows that MDT Primary Highways are almost 100% Minor Arterial, and MDT Secondary Highways are 96% Major Collector (4% Minor Arterial). Given that the county/local has its own substantial percentages of Major and Minor Collectors as PS, I think the classification of MDT Secondary highways as mH is the best choice.

MT FC and Waze Road types sheet. In this sheet, per latest clarification, the dark green cells in question would be mH, and the orange PS. And this is how the national FC already is; this is just another clarification.

mH would be 9.87% of MDT roadway miles, and PS 15.57%.