User Discussions > Other Discussion
Unsigned State Routes
mapmikey:
Seems to me a true Joe Traveler who is not a roadgeek would do the opposite. Drive wherever they drive and enter as much of it on the TM site as is covered.
I feel like some of this discussion conflates State Maintained (little to no advocacy) with State Highway (multiple advocates).
Situations like UT 900/901 can be avoided by criteria #8 - needs to be paved or otherwise justified if unpaved
I see zero harm to anything/anyone by including the unposted/not-posted-the-right-way state highways with the criteria in the OP list if a maintainer wants to put the files together, whether in a separate bucket within any state's list of buckets or not. If somebody doesn't want to track these they don't have to. As for the "touring route" concept, at least 9 of the completely unposted Virginia state highways are fully labeled on their tourist maps.
Maryland will be difficult - Virginia has these same sorts of routes but put them in their own separate system (F-routes). A lot of unsigned Maryland state highways fail criteria #4 though. I would be happy to assist in deciding which ones should be included. BTW, MD 856 is completely drivable on its original narrow-width concrete... :)
cl94:
--- Quote from: mapmikey on February 11, 2021, 07:21:51 pm ---Seems to me a true Joe Traveler who is not a roadgeek would do the opposite. Drive wherever they drive and enter as much of it on the TM site as is covered.
I feel like some of this discussion conflates State Maintained (little to no advocacy) with State Highway (multiple advocates).
Situations like UT 900/901 can be avoided by criteria #8 - needs to be paved or otherwise justified if unpaved
[snipped]
Maryland will be difficult - Virginia has these same sorts of routes but put them in their own separate system (F-routes). A lot of unsigned Maryland state highways fail criteria #4 through. I would be happy to assist in deciding which ones should be included. BTW, MD 856 is completely drivable on its original narrow-width concrete... :)
--- End quote ---
Emphasis mine. There is a difference between "state maintained" and "state highway", which Duke87 differentiated between, especially in the cases of DE, VA, WV, NC, and SC, where virtually every road outside of incorporated areas is "state maintained" but not a "state highway". Compare this to NY or NJ, where every road maintained by the state DOT (and some others) is legally a "state highway", but they are finite systems.
And yes, MD 856 is entirely drivable, as I drove it myself in a normal car. Part of me would want to include that as an Easter egg, but I see why people would be opposed. A very large percentage of the unsigned Maryland routes would fail one of the criteria.
I like your criteria 8. That basically eliminates the 4x4 tracks in a couple states that get route numbers.
US 89:
--- Quote from: bejacob on February 11, 2021, 06:44:43 pm ---I don't think I've make a trip in the last couple years without consulting the relevant area for roads I might want to drive/clinch. When in the field, I rely on signage to follow a route. I sometimes take printouts from TM with me to help, but trying to follow an unsigned route is just impractical when behind the wheel.
--- End quote ---
Some signed routes are also impractical to follow. Good luck with successfully guessing the route of a US highway through a Tennessee city or over an Arkansas or Colorado concurrency. I will say, by the way, that TM was a very helpful resource for me in determining the routes of the various US routes through Chattanooga when I drove up there last fall - signage is really lacking in that area in many cases and Google is often wrong.
--- Quote from: mapmikey on February 11, 2021, 07:21:51 pm ---I feel like some of this discussion conflates State Maintained (little to no advocacy) with State Highway (multiple advocates).
--- End quote ---
This. As far as I can tell, nobody on here wants to add every single state maintained road. Likewise, I don't think anybody seriously wants to add every single road numbered by the state - as yakra mentioned above, in several New England states every single road has a number. And in my home state of Utah, for example, there is a statewide system of 4-digit federal aid routes numbered by the state and are even signed occasionally in more rural areas While it could be fun to clinch them, none of them are state maintained and the system includes just about every road of collector or greater status - so I see no need to include a system like that.
The people who want to see unsigned routes, including myself, are generally focused on unsigned primary state routes. In other words, numbered state routes that are in route systems that are generally signed, and are administratively equivalent to signed routes in their systems, but for whatever reason don't happen to have any (or enough) signage on their own.
This definition is useful in that it allows roads like the various NJ "unsigned" routes but excludes Utah 900/901, which are still "state routes" but are defined in a completely separate section of state law and are thus not administratively equivalent.
cl94:
--- Quote from: US 89 on February 11, 2021, 07:47:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: bejacob on February 11, 2021, 06:44:43 pm ---I don't think I've make a trip in the last couple years without consulting the relevant area for roads I might want to drive/clinch. When in the field, I rely on signage to follow a route. I sometimes take printouts from TM with me to help, but trying to follow an unsigned route is just impractical when behind the wheel.
--- End quote ---
Some signed routes are also impractical to follow. Good luck with successfully guessing the route of a US highway through a Tennessee city or over an Arkansas or Colorado concurrency. I will say, by the way, that TM was a very helpful resource for me in determining the routes of the various US routes through Chattanooga when I drove up there last fall - signage is really lacking in that area in many cases and Google is often wrong.
--- End quote ---
I have lost count of how many routes are impossible to follow through Northeastern cities if you are only relying on signage. All of these are "signed routes", but the city/AHJ doesn't have route shields high on its priority list. I want to say that every surface route entering Syracuse city limits, for example, has at least one unsigned turn. I learned very early on in my travels to have sources other than signs to rely on, because you can't rely on signs in many places. If "you're able to follow the signs" is your criteria to define a "signed route", then a lot of the routes on TM would not be included.
There's also the fact that some signed routes involve movements that are illegal or impossible (cough...Colorado, but several other states are guilty) to follow as signed without looping around.
Duke87:
--- Quote from: vdeane on February 10, 2021, 09:12:56 pm ---I wouldn't be surprised if the reason unsigned routes in North America other than interstates aren't included is because Tim didn't want to deal with all this when running CHM.
--- End quote ---
The reason is definitely because Tim, though the true rationale behind it is only known to him.
Meanwhile don't be concerned that you got this discussion going because of your I-676 post... the subject of unsigned highways is not a new discussion. Indeed, it has been noted before that there are multiple prospective users who would have TM accounts if we included unsigned state highways, but consider the site not useful to them because we don't, and therefore have not signed up.
The key reason I push for this is because of that broader community feedback - we can't please everyone all the time, but we should please as many people as we can as much as we can. And when otherwise prominent members of the roadgeek community say the site is not appealing to them, we should listen to why rather than writing them off.
--- Quote from: oscar on February 10, 2021, 10:13:19 pm ---Actually, Tim included A-920 in Quebec, as an unsigned Autoroute. We later determined that Autoroute didn't exist, which is why there were no signs, so out it went. I'm not sure there is any completely unsigned primary route in Quebec, though for some the route signage is borderline (QC 136 in Quebec city, and the short A-930 south of Montreal, come to mind).
--- End quote ---
Quebec has a separate system for roads that are provincially maintained but not signed. They are assigned 5-digit inventory numbers. Due to the administrative separation and my understanding that these 5-digit roads are fairly numerous, I would put this in the "nah" category.
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