usanp (U.S. National Park Highways)

[bejacob]

The one potential rub is that both roads are unnumbered state highways. The roads were there before the national park was established in 1980, and remain under state maintenance.


Any comments on whether one or both roads are appropriate additions to usanp?

What sort of signage exists? That might help make a determination whether to include them.

[oscar]

The one potential rub is that both roads are unnumbered state highways. The roads were there before the national park was established in 1980, and remain under state maintenance.


Any comments on whether one or both roads are appropriate additions to usanp?

What sort of signage exists? That might help make a determination whether to include them.

Neither road has an assigned route number, other than a six-digit Alaska DOT&PF inventory number, so there is no route number signage. Alaska has many long and significant routes, most of which are outside national parks, that don't have route numbers. The three roads that are the spokes of the Nome highway network, the unnumbered part of the Taylor Highway to Eagle, and Chena Hot Springs Road east of Fairbanks, each are unnumbered roads longer than the McCarthy and Nabesna roads.

The only distinctive signs on the McCarthy Road are various brown National Park Service signs, and also some nonstandard milemarkers in a different number sequence than for connecting AK 10. 

I haven't driven the Nabesna Road, and there's no GMSV coverage. But the Milepost travel guide log for that road reports there are signs indicating you're entering/leaving/are within Park Service land, as well as an "end state maintenance" sign just before its east end.

[yakra]

I don't believe maintenance matters (the Vermont issue) unless it affects numbering.

Maintenance is a one-size-does-not-fit-all thing. Maintenance does not matter in VT, NH, or ME. Nor in RI from what I gather? In CT, it affects route numbering.
So yeah, I'd say this is true for numbered state systems, though it breaks down once we're doing unnumbered, named roads. For instance, maintenance was a big factor on what got included in usanyp. (Well, more accurately I guess, the answer to "Does it have a NYSDOT reference route number?", but I digress...)
I comes down to how much Si chose to consider maintenance when planning/drafting this system.

[si404]

I comes down to how much Si chose to consider maintenance when planning/drafting this system.

Didn't consider it much at all.

With a grab-bag-esque system like this, I'd argue that when it comes to those sort of issues, the local maintainer can choose.

Are the OSM boundaries, or the Google boundaries more correct (presumably OSM is just the NP, Google the Preserve too?) - if Googles, then I concur, if OSM then there's a lot outside the national parks.

[oscar]

Are the OSM boundaries, or the Google boundaries more correct (presumably OSM is just the NP, Google the Preserve too?) - if Googles, then I concur, if OSM then there's a lot outside the national parks.

The National Park Service's map for Wrangell-St. Elias differentiates between the park and the preserve. OSM's boundaries more or less follow the "park" boundaries, while Google's lump together the "park" and "preserve" parts.  NPS boundary signs along the McCarthy Road also distinguish between the park and the preserve, indicating whether the park is on both sides of the highway, or the preserve is, or in some places the park is on one side of the road and the preserve is on the other side. (I don't know about the Nabesna Road, since neither I nor GMSV have been there, though the Milepost travel guide suggests that its NPS signage is similar.) Those signs are most relevant to hunters/fishermen/trappers, since they are under looser restrictions in the preserve than in the park.

But on either side of the line, the land is protected by the NPS, and there's not much difference between park and preserve protections. And the major tourist destinations within Wrangell-St. Elias, especially the historic Kennecott copper mine and the nearby small town of McCarthy, are within preserve rather than park boundaries. So I would lump together the park and the preserve.

The park/preserve distinction doesn't come up that often. There are only 21 national preserves in the U.S., 10 of which are in Alaska. Of the 21 national preserves in the U.S., 11 are combination national park (or monument)/national preserves. Seven of them are in Alaska, and of those only two (Wrangell-St. Elias, Denali) have roads in their park areas, and two (Wrangell-St. Elias, and the isolated Katmai in southwestern Alaska) have roads in their preserve areas.

FWIW, the Generals Highway, in California and usanp, starts in Kings Canyon NP and ends in Sequoia NP, and is a key shortcut between the two parks. But the middle of the highway is in Forest Service lands (under the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture), rather than NPS (Dept. of the Interior).   

[oscar]

Pull request submitted to add McCarthy Rd. and Nabesna Rd. to usanp:

https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/pull/2633