Author Topic: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)  (Read 9025 times)

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Offline julmac

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned
« Reply #30 on: August 18, 2019, 01:15:47 am »
Would firming up a table of rules or best practices help with this discussion? Something like this (for a state / provincial systems):

  • Signed / inventoried / state jurisdiction - include
  • Signed / inventoried / local jurisdiction - include
  • Unsigned / inventoried / state jurisdiction - include
  • Unsigned / inventoried / local jurisdiction - do not include
  • Signed / not inventoried / local jurisdiction   - include

Case 3 routes (unsigned / inventoried / state jurisdiction) definitely seem less worthy of inclusion then Case 2 routes (signed / inventoried / local jurisdiction). This could also be taken further to differentiate between "intentionally unsigned" routes and "unintentionally unsigned" (including minimally or poorly signed) routes.

Offline Duke87

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned
« Reply #31 on: August 18, 2019, 06:14:00 pm »
It would help I'd think, yes.

I think it's important to consider the administrative nuances as well - for the purposes of this discussion we're focusing on unsigned routes which are part of an existing system TM already has, not a separate system that TM does not already have.

Take New York for example. New York has an administrative distinction between "Touring Routes" (numbered 1-899) and "Reference Routes" (numbered 900-999 with letter suffixes).

Touring Routes are intended for navigational use by the motoring public, and are all signed (possibly except NY 495, which is only erroneously signed as I-495... but details).  Reference Routes, on the other hand, are not intended for navigational use by the motoring public, and with only a few occasional weird exceptions (which are usually errors) are never signed except on reference markers. Since it is clearly a separate system, I do not advocate going and including NY reference routes.

On the other hand, across the river in New Jersey, the situation more resembles Oregon's - there is only one state highway system, with no administrative distinction between signed and unsigned routes. The handful of NJ state routes that are unsigned are not by any broad policy explicitly supposed to be unsigned - they simply are not signed because the state has never bothered putting shields up, and for any given route this could change on the whim of a DOT engineer without any established rules being broken. These are the sorts of routes that we'd want to consider adding.
In cases like this I'd be fine with making "New Jersey Unsigned State Highways" (usanju) a separate system so that users who don't care about unsigned highways can continue ignoring them, but this would be a distinction we're creating - the state does not consider them to be a separate system.

Offline oscar

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned
« Reply #32 on: August 18, 2019, 08:13:05 pm »
On the other hand, across the river in New Jersey, the situation more resembles Oregon's - there is only one state highway system, with no administrative distinction between signed and unsigned routes.

Except Oregon has two separate but overlapping systems -- the main one with a mix of signed and unsigned routes, and the unsigned ORH system which seems to resemble New York reference routes.

As for parallel "unsigned routes" systems, it's not just some users who might be indifferent. Whatever team member is responsible for the main system in a state might be unhappy about creating a parallel unsigned route system, or even with having to coordinate with someone else who wants to create such a system (for example, having to create and maintain waypoints in signed route files for intersections with unsigned routes). This might be especially an issue for team members not on GitHub, which we encountered when usaush was developed in their states. So you might have unsigned route sets in some states but not others.

In most of my jurisdictions, the unsigned routes are small and usually unimportant, and in some cases (like unsigned California business routes) no longer really exist anyway since the localities that insisted on and maintained the routes and their signage have since abandoned the signage. My Arctic systems have some important routes with route numbers but no route signage (not yet, or route number signs briefly existed until they were repeatedly vandalized), which we've treated as exceptions to go into existing systems. There are also important routes with no assigned route numbers (except internal inventory numbers), which we've omitted unless they qualified for one of our "select" named routes systems such as usanp, usasf, or cannf.

I am completely comfortable with the status quo in my jurisdictions.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2019, 09:08:42 pm by oscar »

Offline Duke87

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned
« Reply #33 on: August 18, 2019, 09:14:16 pm »
As for parallel "unsigned routes" systems, it's not just some users who might be indifferent. Whatever team member is responsible for the main system in a state might be unhappy about creating a parallel unsigned route system, or even with having to coordinate with someone else who wants to create such a system (for example, having to create and maintain waypoints in signed route files for intersections with unsigned routes). This might be especially an issue for team members not on GitHub, which we encountered when usaush was developed in their states. So you might have unsigned route sets in some states but not others.

Seems to me GitHub should be able to handle the coordination aspect just fine. We don't have issues with multiple users editing files like updates.csv, after all.

If I wanted to go through and draft unsigned highways in a state that was not otherwise mine, I would go in and make the edits myself to any files in the main system that need intersections added or relabeled to accommodate this. The state's maintainer would not need to lift a finger if they didn't want this task - and so long as they remember to update their fork before making edits this should not cause problems.

I can see where this might cause file conflicts if someone is not using GitHub, but it should not be difficult to identify which jurisdictions are affected and either not touch them for now or figure out how to more carefully navigate them.


As far as the inconsequentiality of many unsigned routes goes... well, yes, that is another can of worms. Maryland has unsigned routes that are half of a one way pair with an otherwise signed route. Utah has unsigned route numbers for certain state-maintained parking lots, and a couple dedicated road test courses which are not open to the general public outside of their use for such. Naturally, this is going to be a cleaner rabbit hole to go down in some states than in others.





Offline si404

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned
« Reply #34 on: August 19, 2019, 02:35:35 am »
So the Netherlands are like Rhode Island.
I don't know what the figures are like for the Netherlands, but probably about the same (if not slightly better) than the UK. Dutch roadgeek, British and Northern Irish roads.

I presume RI are bad in North America for route signage. The UK (and the Netherlands) are good for Europe for route signage.

Online Markkos1992

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)
« Reply #35 on: May 25, 2021, 09:00:40 am »
Does this post help address this topic in any way?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=21742.msg2618555#msg2618555

Offline Bickendan

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)
« Reply #36 on: May 25, 2021, 08:28:46 pm »
Does this post help address this topic in any way?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=21742.msg2618555#msg2618555
Serves as a reminder to upload 127 and convert Delta Highway to 132. I need to grab a fresh copy of the .csvs though, as the ones I have I was running an experiment with regarding highway names.

Offline Jim

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)
« Reply #37 on: July 03, 2021, 10:43:24 am »
The DelHwy -> OR 132 conversion is in GitHub.  Could someone could give a sanity check to the CSV updates and updates entries that I included?

https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/commit/8e70410ab53ca772274c8c319e1afb6d4bc2b578

and

https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/commit/f2e7ce386f62ffdb4516c11772cf9cf13ec640a8

Offline yakra

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)
« Reply #38 on: July 03, 2021, 12:10:48 pm »
Looks good per a quick eyeball scan.
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Offline compdude787

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Re: OR: OR 350 is unsigned (larger discussion about unsigned routes)
« Reply #39 on: July 04, 2021, 01:20:20 am »
Looks good to me; I also noticed that he fixed the NMP I posted about in this thread: https://forum.travelmapping.net/index.php?topic=4012.msg24588#new