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The place to get information and ask questions about everything to do with properly and successfully editing the Waze Map.

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Post by rcenteno_davis
I have some automated URs where the green GPS tracks follow the proper left turn, but the purple track is our angled-not-curved-turns in the intersection.
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Post by skapur1
So what is the consensus in the US: Should we look at what Mapquest calls neighborhood and what Google Maps just brings up when you type a city name or should we go by the Zip code for the location? Most people know their location by their mailing address which would mean we should use Zip code.

I got a mini sea of orange here because of this:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=3&lat ... s=63619121
The current location seems to be correct by Zip code (Medford):
https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source ... 64187&z=13
But both Mapquest (http://mapq.st/10yWZZw ) (you have to click the neighborhood button) and Google:
( https://maps.google.com/maps?q=coram,ny ... 12&vpsrc=0 )agree that the location should be Coram.

So what should a Waze editor do?
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Post by skapur1
jasonh300 wrote:Your best resource is an interactive GIS map that has City and Census Designated Places (CDP) layers. Government issued maps are always going to be the most accurate, and legal to use as a source. Google, Bing and Mapquest are copyrighted and not valid sources.

In some places, nobody uses those CDP names, and they really shouldn't be on the map, but they're still going to show the error bubbles if you remove them.

Forget Zip Code maps. The USPS has consolidated so many towns and small cities into the nearest large city, they'll be useless.

Most of these that I've seen were caused by people adding city names outside of the city limits, where the No City box should be checked.
I understand what you are saying. I was using Mapquest and Google for reference only and not using them as a source (which is legal) to illustrate the issue.

While government issued maps may be the most "accurate", I am pretty sure that few people use them as an address for navigation routing. Most people look at their mailing address as their official address and that is where ZIP codes come in. On Long Island, NY there has been no zip code consolidation that I am aware of.

In the northeast USA, the legal concept of cities, towns and counties is VERY different from that of the rest of the country. In any case Hamlets (the "city" example I gave) as a legal entity do not exist and so different governmental agencies carve them up for their own convenience and have their own GIS boundaries for hamlets.

On Long Island, NY their are MANY governmental organizations sometimes completely independent of each other: the town tax departments, town highway departments, the fire districts, the school districts, the power authority, the water authority the election commissions ALL have completely different GIS systems with their own hamlet boundaries that is different from the ZIP codes boundaries and CDP boundaries and rarely do they every match.

Therefore my suggestion is to use zip code maps as that is an address a normal mortal human can hope to keep track of (or they wont get mail).
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Post by skapur1
jasonh300 wrote:What people are using for navigation is not relevant to the city layer in the WME editor. Lookups come from Bing, which returns latitude and longitude. Waze then routes you to those coordinates.

The reason for the city layer is to have accurate polygons to the city limits or edges of the CDPs.
Would it not be simpler not have "city" at all in Waze for the United States but just import it from the US Census GIS (which is publicly downloadable)?

If "accurate polygons" is the only reason to update city information and they are not used for anything practical in Waze, why have them and why should any one bother updating city information or putting correct information in it all? ever? And why does Waze care?
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Post by skapur1
PhantomSoul wrote:I could - I just thought it looked dumb.

The real problem is the town/township issue where in many places the individual towns within a township are better known than the township itself. But if political boundaries are that important, I guess I could just use official municipality names.

Does this also mean that all 5 boroughs of New York City should just say "New York?" That hardly sounds right in Queens, for example, where everyone commonly refers to the neighborhood names, including the post office?
I think different parts of the country have different opinions.

I was under the impression that local usage wins in Waze. In NYC metro area (including Long Island and NJ), zip codes are much more meaningful as are the boroughs. In other areas where local government is more united it may be different.

As I have said before we have several governmental organizations on Long Island (Town tax department, Town highway department, Water authority, Power Authority, Fire district, school district, Census bureau, Election commission, Post Office ...) each with their own different boundary for the same locality on their own GIS systems.

People on this forum insist on using a government boundary. My question is: Which of the above governments boundary should we use?

I vote for the Post Office zip code for the Long Island and New Jersey area. Other areas with a more united government should pick other ways to define boundaries.
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Post by skapur1
jasonh300 wrote:Remember this is a GPS app for drivers, not for mailing letters. Zip codes are useless to drivers, especially if they're not local to the area.
As I said, it is VERY location dependent. In some areas of the country zip codes are useless. Up here with fragmented governments coming up with their own and different political boundaries FOR THE SAME LOCALITY, zip codes (not the number but the town name associated with one) are about the only thing close to a standard that exists.
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Post by skapur1
jondrush wrote: What does the state say the boundary is? That's what we use in PA.

In MD, much of the state is unincorporated. Zip codes boundaries are your best option there.
The localities here are mostly unincorporated hamlets and the state therefore says very little. Every department of the state deals with a different local government e.g. the State Education department deals with the School district.
There is no true unincorporated area in NY State. Most counties (i.e. all counties outside NY City) are divided into "incorporated towns", "incorporated cities" and "incorporated villages". Most municipal services outside a city or village are provided by the "town" government with some services provided by the county government. There are very few official "cities" in NY state when compared to "cities" listed in Waze.

Here is an example of an official "town" with very well defined boundaries for the "town" itself and its communities and locations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookhaven ... _locations
The town itself is over 500 sq miles and has about half a million people living in it. The problem is that the boundary of most of the "Communities and locations" is defined differently by different local government departments.

While one source of information on NY State: http://orthos.dhses.ny.gov/?lat=40.7215 ... 79&zoom=13 has town and incorporated village boundaries (click on layers), it does not have all the locations listed in the Wikipedia article above. Interestingly enough one of the layers that this NY State "government" mapping source lists is Zip code boundaries!

I know most places in the United States are not so confused about locality boundaries.
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Post by skapur1
jondrush wrote:Your state gives me a headache! :D
Welcome to the club. My state gives me a headache too :x
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Post by sockslabs
In large swarths of MA, we have "Greater Hopkington Area", "Greater Northborough Area", "Greater Westborough Area", and then also plain-ole "Hopkington", "Northborough", and "Westborough". This is a sea of orange mess just waiting to happen.

Does anyone know how it got to be this way? Is it historical or hysterical?
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